When Good Spells Go Bad
by Kennie Gajos
Summary: My name is Willow Rosenberg... I’m a witch... I did a spell and it went wrong... I ended up on a spaceship, it’s alive... full of fugitive aliens... Is any of this getting through...? There’s another human here... John... A Farscape/Buffy crossover.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** When Good Spells Go Bad

**Rating:** 12A

**Distribution:** Twisting the Hellmouth and Fanfiction dot net.

**Challenge Response:** TtH's FFA challenge, Willow/John Crichton pairing. Friendship only I'm afraid... I love Crichton and Aeryn too much to frell with them.

**Disclaimer:** I own neither Buffy the Vampire Slayer nor Farscape, although I did once go on a march to save Farscape and met Jade Goody. True story. I make no money from the creation or distribution of this story and the characters I use do not belong to me.

**Author's Note:** I know, it's crazy to start another fic while I'm still bogged down with Slayers in Space, but I needed a little light relief while wrestling with the latest monster chapter and this idea has been kicking around for so long that it deserved to be written down.

**When Good Spells Go Bad**

_My name is Willow Rosenberg... I'm a witch... I did a spell and it went wrong... I ended up on a spaceship, it's alive... full of fugitive aliens... Is any of this getting through...? There's another human here... John... an astronaut... lost, like me... Can you understand me...? Where am I...? I've got to get back... got to help my friends... Buffy, Xander, Dawn, Giles, Tara... I wanna go home._

"Attention, Moya is detecting a build up of energy."

The announcement came over the com system and elicited a typical response from those members of the crew currently aboard the leviathan spaceship.

"What kind of energy, Pilot?"

"A wormhole?"

"Where?"

"In the control room," Pilot said. "Moya has never experienced anything like this before."

"I'm round the corner from there," John Crichton, IASA astronaut, wormhole enthusiast and the human most wanted by Peacekeeper forces, said into the com unit attached to his white shirt as he pulled a quick one-eighty.

"On my way," Ka D'Argo's voice came from the com unit as John ran towards the control room.

"As am I," said Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan.

John ran through the open door to the control room only to come skidding to a halt as he caught sight of the glittery dust coalescing in the air.

"Whoa!" he said and tapped the com unit. "Hey guys, we got some kind of dust problem."

"Dust?" D'Argo and Zhaan spoke at the same time.

"Yeah, some kinda... glitterdust," John said as the sparkly stuff pulled in tighter on itself, swirling faster.

"Glitterdust?" D'Argo sounded even more frustrated than usual. "Crichton, if this is some sort of human joke..."

"Whoa!" John exclaimed again as the dust pulled in even tighter, seeming to pulse slightly before it exploded, revealing a slim woman with curly red hair.

She blinked, swaying dizzily as she struggled to focus on him. Twin rivulets of blood crept from her nose to run down towards her red lip. A frown crumpled her white forehead.

"Um... oops?" she said and crumpled.

John leapt forward and somehow managed to catch her before her head hit the sharp edge of the control console. Carefully, he laid her down on the floor, turning her head so that the blood from her nosebleed ran down her face to the floor instead of down her throat. Catching sight of the scar that gleamed palely there on her neck, he frowned.

"What is it, John?" Zhaan asked over the coms.

"It's a girl," John said, staring at her in shock. He'd seen a lot in his time in the Uncharted Territories but never a girl appearing out of dust. Although there had been that time with the Drak...

"What?" D'Argo snapped. "I thought you said it was glitterdust. Never mind! I'm almost there."

Sure enough, it wasn't long before he came running into the control room, his Qualta blade drawn and a fierce expression on his tentacled face. He stopped as soon as he caught sight of Crichton crouching over an unconscious girl and lowered his weapon.

"What did you do?" he demanded to know.

"Nothing!" John said defensively, standing up.

"Who is she?"

"I don't know."

"Where did she come from?"

"I don't know."

"How did she get onboard Moya?"

"I don't know!"

"Is there anything you do know?" D'Argo asked, sheathing his Qualta blade.

"Sure," John said. "Krispy Kreme make the best doughnuts, e equals mc squared and the Red Sox'll never win the World Series."

D'Argo growled at him, pushing past to kneel at the red-haired woman's side, "Did she say anything?"

"'Um... oops?'" John repeated. He shrugged as D'Argo glared at him.

"What happened?" Zhaan asked as she rushed into the room.

"Big swirly dust cloud," John told her, waving his arms around in an attempt to try and describe it. "It got smaller, went boom only without the boom part, and left her behind. Then she passed out."

"Did she say anything before she lost consciousness?" asked Zhaan, crouching over her.

"Um, oops." D'Argo said.

"What did you do?" Zhaan asked, looking up.

"No, that's what she said," John told her. He shrugged. "Um... oops."

"I see," Zhaan said, turning back to the girl. "I think it's safe to move her. D'Argo, help me get her to my lab."

"That is a very bad idea," D'Argo said, folding his arms.

"What?" John said, surprised. "Why?"

"We have no clue where she came from, how she got on board or what her intentions may be," said D'Argo with a scowl. "I say we lock her up."

"You can't just lock her up because we don't know how she got here," John said. "What if she's badly hurt?"

"D'Argo raises a valid point," Zhaan rose to her feet, holding her hands out peaceably. "Until we know more about her, we cannot risk giving her the run of the ship. I can treat her in private quarters with only a little more difficulty than treating her in my lab."

"I'm re-instating the cell-door function on tier three," D'Argo said, doing just that.

"John, I need you to fetch some things from my lab," said Zhaan, "Listen carefully...."


	2. Chapter 2

Zhaan frowned as she removed the new arrival's strange garb. Truthfully, she had never seen anything like it before. The blue woven fabric of her trousers was most intriguing. Folding her garments carefully, she placed them to one side and turned back to the young woman lying on the bed in front of her, checking her body for any other obvious injuries. Finding none, she dipped a cloth into a bowl of water and began to gently clean the dried blood from her face.

"Hey, Zhaan, I got the stuff you wanted," John said, striding into the room. "Ah, dammit!" Catching sight of pale breasts, he threw his arm over his eyes. "Couldn't you shut the door?"

"And leave Zhaan locked in there with her?" D'Argo said from his post in the hallway. "I think not."

"Yeah, well, ya coulda warned me!" John said to D'Argo, keeping his arm over his eyes as he held out the bag he carried.

"But then I would have missed your reaction," D'Argo pointed out with a smirk.

Smiling, Zhaan relieved John of the bag, peeking inside, "Thank you, John,"

"Yeah, sure," John said, trying to find his way out of the room with his arm still over his face. "Anytime."

Suppressing her laughter, Zhaan turned back to her patient, pulling the scanner remote out of the bag. Behind her, John bumped into the bulkhead next to the open door.

**l**

"How is she?" John asked when Zhaan emerged a short while later.

"Still unconscious," Zhaan sighed, waving her hand over the door controls to shut and lock it. "I'll know more once I get back to my lab."

"The others have returned from the commerce planet," Pilot announced over their coms. "They are requesting everyone's help in unloading the transport pod."

"Thank you Pilot," said Zhaan, tapping her com unit. "Please tell them that we are on our way."

"That was quick," John commented.

"Let us hope that they have had more luck than the last time," said D'Argo, leading the way through the corridors of Moya.

**l**

"There you are!" exclaimed the former Peacekeeper, Aeryn Sun, jumping out of the transport pod with a large crate in her arms. "Zhaan, these are the supplies you wanted."

"Thank you," said Zhaan, taking the crate from her. "I'll take them to my lab and then return to help you unload."

"Any help you can give," Aeryn said, grabbing another crate. "Chiana and Rygel have disappeared."

"Typical," D'Argo growled and took the second crate from her, following Zhaan out of the hangar bay.

"You okay?" John asked, grabbing a crate from the back of the transport pod. "You seem tense... er than usual."

"I am never doing a commerce run with those two again!" Aeryn declared. "Not on my own. I had to keep Chiana from starting a fight, Rygel from being eaten and both of them from snurching anything. All at the same time!"

"I'm sure it wasn't that bad," John said, grinning at the mental picture her words conjured up.

"It was worse!" Aeryn told him emphatically.

"Yeah, well, while you were dealing with that, we had a little situation of our own up here."

Aeryn sighed. Despite the various sticky situations they'd gotten into down on the commerce planet, she'd known that this run was going too smoothly. They just didn't have luck like that.

"What happened?" she asked.

**l**

Her head was all fuzzy and achy, like that time she got drunk after Oz left. Her mouth tasted funny too. Not all fusty like last time, but coppery... like blood!

Willow sat bolt upright with a gasp, clutching her wrist. She sighed in relief, sagging as she felt the rapid pulse fluttering there. She was alive...

But where was she? Willow stared at her strange surroundings with wide eyes. The room was like nothing she had ever seen before, all curving lines and strange surfaces in shades that varied from golden to brown. Even the slippery fabric pooled in her lap was gold in colour and she, Willow squeaked as she made a very important discovery, she was _naked_!

Noticing her clothes in a neat pile on the other side of the room, Willow wrapped the golden sheet around her, surprised by how warm it was, and practically ran to get them, taking them back to the other side of the room, away from the... was that the door? Quickly dragging her clothes on, she went back to it, peering through the strange curved bars. Yes, it was definitely the door. She could see a long curving corridor, stretching off into the distance. But how to open it?

Pushing didn't work and neither did pulling. There was nothing in the room that she could use as a lever. Finding part of the doorframe that looked different, she jabbed it with her finger. Nothing happened. Close to giving up, Willow moved back to the bars, cocking her head as she heard a distant whirring.

Pressing herself against the bars, she strained to see what was coming, only to leap back in horror once she had. Throwing herself behind the strange bed, she shivered as she hid. Not wanting to look, but unable to help it, she peeked through her fingers as the demon floated past the door. Terrified, Willow bit her lip to stop the whimper from escaping. The whirring noise faded into the distance and was gone.

Willow forced herself to move. She wasn't going to stay here and wait until the demon got hungry and decided she was on the menu. She wasn't even gonna wait for Buffy to come rescue her. No sirree... she was getting out of here right now!

**l**

**'Scape-ism's**

Snurching = Stealing.


	3. Chapter 3

Walking through the familiar hallways of Moya, Chiana was more than surprised to come face to face with an unknown Sebacean woman, especially when that woman leapt back with a small scream. Chiana jumped back too, wary of the stranger.

"Who are you?" they both said at the same time.

"You first," Chiana told the woman, gesturing at her.

"Willow," the red-haired woman said, placing her hand on her chest.

"Chiana," said the grey-skinned Nebari warily, doing the same with both of her hands.

"Are you a prisoner of the demon frogs too?" Willow asked conspiratorially.

"Frog?" Chiana said, cocking her head to one side. "You mean Rygel? That's what Crichton calls him."

"Crichton?" asked Willow, frowning.

"Yeah," said Chiana, relaxing. "You know Crichton?"

"Who's Crichton?"

"Guess not," sighed Chiana.

"Can you understand me?" Willow asked, frowning.

"Yeah, course I can," Chiana laughed, a couple of gurgling notes. "Why wouldn't I?"

"The prisoner is loose!"

Willow flinched as D'Argo's voice came over Chiana's com unit. She tensed as Chiana reached for the small device she wore on her scanty corset and the black-eyed Nebari held her other arm out peaceably as she touched the com unit.

"Relax guys, she's with me," Chiana told her shipmates. "Where the frell did she come from?"

"Prisoner? What prisoner?" Dominar Rygel the Sixteenth demanded to know.

"We don't know. She appeared out of nowhere in the middle of command," Zhaan explained. "Where are you?"

"Tier seven," Chiana told them. "Near Moya's neural cluster."

"I'm on my way!" said D'Argo.

"Drad," said Chiana. "Hey, what she do anyway? Seems like a thoddo to- Dren!" Chiana swore as Willow suddenly turned and ran.

"What?" asked Aeryn.

"She took off!"

On tier nine, on their way up to the galley with crates of foodcubes, Aeryn and John exchanged a quick look before ditching the crates and drawing their weapons. Racing up the hallway to tier eight together, they hesitated at a crucial junction.

"You take hammen and I'll take treblin," Aeryn said and touched her com. "Pilot, seal off the levels."

"Closing access points," Pilot informed them as the door that they had just come through began to swing shut.

Nodding his agreement, John took off down the opposite hallway, checking in every room before he closed it. Moya's DRD's began to zip along the floor at odd angles as they joined in the search. They found her before he did.

"Crichton, the DRD's have located her in your passageway," Pilot said urgently over the com link. "She is running in your direction."

"Thanks Pilot," said John, slowing his pace down and flicking Winona's safety mechanism off.

He spotted her shortly after that, her red curls bouncing as she ran toward him. Crichton yelled at her to stop and she stumbled to a halt, staring at the gun in his hand and then back over her shoulder at the DRD's following her. They fanned out, blocking the hallway behind her, their small laser guns extended at the slim threat to Moya and her crew.

"You okay?" John asked uncertainly, lowering Winona as he saw the terror in her wide eyes.

"Oh, thank the Goddess!" she gasped breathlessly. She took two steps forward only to halt as he raised Winona again. "Please help me," she implored. "I don't wanna be eaten by demon frogs and I think the grey demon is helping them and I can't find my way out and I know I should wait for Buffy to rescue me but I hate frogs, I didn't even know there were demon frogs, did you?"

"Demon frogs?" John said to himself as she continued talking about how they had to find a way out, staring at her in awe as he wondered if she'd taken a single breath yet. She must mean his Royal Frogginess, he thought.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," said John and she faltered and stopping talking, staring at him with impossibly large eyes. "Start at the beginning. Do you remember how you got here?"

"Uh..." said the girl and it was as though a shutter had fallen over her hazel eyes. "No. Honest," she insisted as John raised his eyebrows skeptically.

Not convinced, John moved on to the next question, "Where did you come from?"

"The hospital," she said.

"What hospital?" asked John, frowning.

"Sunnydale hospital. I am still in Sunnydale, right?" she must have read the confusion on his face because she gasped. "Oh, Goddess, I'm not, am I? Where are we? Are we in hell? I don't wanna go to hell, Buffy went to hell once and she said that the demons there made you work until you were old and then spat you out where you came from a day later, she didn't say that they were demon frogs though, you think she'd have mentioned that, wouldn't you? Something like that, that's need to know information..."

How the hell did she breathe? He couldn't see any gills but they could have been hidden by her hair. "We're not in hell," John told her as she carried on speaking.

"We're not in hell," she repeated, mid-sentence.

"No."

"We're not in hell," she sighed, and he suddenly realised how tense she had been as she relaxed.

"There you are!" Aeryn exclaimed, hurrying down the corridor towards them.

The girl jumped, skittering away from the newcomer as the DRD's cleared a path for her. Warily, John stepped back as she moved closer to him, raising Winona slightly and she stopped in her tracks.

"You could have told me you found her," Aeryn complained. "What's her name?"

"We hadn't got that far," John told her, proud that she was keeping her pulse rifle trained on the ground instead of the clearly terrified girl. The Aeryn Sun he'd met almost two years ago wouldn't have been so restrained. "So, what is your name?" he asked the girl when she remained silent.

"W-Willow," the red-head stammered, staring at Aeryn as through she'd never seen a woman wear leather before. "You can understand her?"

"You don't?" John frowned, turning to Aeryn, "I thought translator microbes came as standard, even out here in the Uncharted Territories."

"They do," said Aeryn, looking troubled as she touched her com unit. "Pilot..."

"I have been monitoring the situation through the DRD's," Pilot replied as Willow cried out in pain.

Turning his attention back to her, John noticed the DRD backing away from her as it folded one of its arms away in its casing. Recognising immediately what had happened, he put Winona away in her holster on his thigh as Willow backed away from them all, wedging herself in-between two of Moya's curving vents.

"Hey, it's okay," he said soothingly, holding his hands up and away from his body. "It's just translator microbes."

"Translator microbes?" she whimpered.

"Yeah, they colonise at the back of your head," John told her, pointing at the top of his neck as he slowly moved towards her.

"Stay away from me!" she squeaked, practically trying to climb the wall. "You're in league with the demon frogs! I'm from Sunnydale, I know a minion when I see one!"

"Demon frogs...?" Aeryn frowned as she rolled the sounds around her mouth, testing their familiarity. "Crichton..."

"I'm no-one's minion!" Crichton objected.

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"Are too."

"Crichton."

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am not."

"Crichton!"

"Are too."

"Am not."

"_Crichton_!"

"What?" John snapped, breaking off the petty squabble to turn to Aeryn.

"She's speaking your language," she told him and both of the humans gaped at her, although for very different reasons.

"No way," John said automatically, staring at the strange girl who had appeared so mysteriously. Was she? He'd gotten so used to the translator microbes that he couldn't tell anymore.

"I can understand you," breathed Willow at the same time, gazing at Aeryn with wide eyes.

"It's the translator microbes," Aeryn said to her. "They help us to understand each other."

"You speak English?" John asked Willow.

"Well, yeah... and French, Spanish, Latin, Ancient Greek..." said Willow, ticking them off on her fingers. "My Sumerian's still kinda shaky."

"You're from _Earth_?" John said incredulously.

"Of course," Willow said as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. Which, of course, it wasn't. "Wait.... you mean we're not on Earth?"

He'd fantasised about what he'd say to another human being if he ever got the chance a thousand times, thought John. But not once in all the times he'd thought about it, had he imagined that the first words out of his mouth would be 'Stop or I'll shoot!' How the hell had she got here?

As Crichton seemed to have been temporarily struck dumb, not a usual occurrence by any means, Aeryn replied, "No."

"But... you said this wasn't hell," Willow said to Crichton. "If I'm not on Earth, and I'm not in hell... where am I?"

"Right now?" said Aeryn. "You're onboard Moya, a leviathan ship currently orbiting a commerce planet in the Uncharted Territories."

Ship... orbit... planet... the words registered in Willow's mind but refused to make any sense. If they didn't make sense then they couldn't be true.

"You're lost," Crichton added. "In space," he grinned suddenly. "Welcome to the club."

"Space..." Willow gasped, staring at him. "Ship!" she asked Aeryn, visibly shaking. "Spaceship? I'm on a spaceship? Oh... my... Goddess... Xander would be so jealous. I ended up on a spaceship. How far are we from Earth?"

"I don't know," Aeryn told her.

"Lost, remember?" John reminded her.

"How... how long have you been lost?" asked Willow in a small voice.

"Almost two cycles," said John. "Sorry, years."

"That's why you look so familiar," Willow realised. "You're John Crichton! You were testing your slingshot theory when your spaceship tore up in the atmosphere and you died."

"Not exactly," John said. "I triggered a wormhole which sucked up my module and spat me out just inside Peacekeeper territory. Everyone thinks I'm dead?"

"We had a minute's silence and everything," Willow told him awkwardly. "Sorry."

"How did you get here?" Aeryn asked her.

"I don't remember," Willow lied without really knowing why. Something told her that telling the truth right now would be a bad idea. "What about you?"

"I was born in space," said Aeryn.

"Aeryn's not human," John explained. "She's a Sebacean."

"A Peacekeeper," Aeryn said.

"A former Peacekeeper," John corrected.

"You're an alien?" Willow asked the dark-haired woman, surprised. She looked so human. Judging by the fluid vowels and glottal stops in her speech, she'd figured that she came from Africa or something. Not space.

"That a problem?" Aeryn asked, easing her pulse rifle up slightly.

"No!" Willow squeaked in alarm. "Some of my closest friends aren't human. Well, they're not my closest friends exactly, but they are friends, actually Spike isn't so much a friend as he is an enemy-turned-ally and Angel was always pretty distant even before he moved to LA and I don't really like Anya much but-"

"You have friends who aren't human?" John interrupted urgently. Had aliens found Earth? What had happened in the two years since he had left?

"No!" Willow lied quickly. "Did I say that? Ha, ha. Must be shock. They don't act human sometimes, that's what I meant."

"Right..." Aeryn said uneasily, lifting her pulse rifle higher.

"We'd better get Zhaan to check you out," John said, beckoning Willow out of her nook. "Make sure you're okay."

Cautiously, Willow stepped out from between the two curved pillars. She was relieved to see that most of the small yellow robots had disappeared although the woman, Aeryn, was still giving off some serious Faith-like vibes.

"C'mon," John said, walking back the way he had come.

Aeryn followed them as the human woman hurried after Crichton, holding her pulse rifle ready in case she tried anything. She didn't trust this new human. How had she arrived on Moya? Aeryn didn't believe her when she said that she didn't remember. What if it was another of Scorpius' twisted plots to capture Crichton? His voice floated back to her as he eagerly resumed his interrogation of the new arrival.

"Hey, who won the Superbowl?"

**'Scape-ism's**** (in order used)**

Frell: Expletive. Roughly equivalent to 'fuck'.

Drad: Cool. "It was the draddest!" (It was the coolest!)

Thoddo: Idiot, dimwit, slow.

Dren: Expletive. Roughly equivalent to 'shit'.

Hammen: Starboard

Treblin: Port

DRD's: Beetle-like robots that maintain Leviathans.

Winona: John Crichton's pulse-pistol. Named after Winona Ryder.

Uncharted Territories: Sector of space (theoretically) beyond the control of the Peacekeepers.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note:**

I was gonna work on the last scene some more before I posted this (I'm not sure Willow's entirely in character) but I just got a call to tell me that my sister-in-law's contractions are three minutes apart and I'm taking the rest of the week off from writing to coo over my new nephew. Unfortunately, I'm on holiday in Prague next week so I won't be updating anything then either. I figured you guys deserve an update (and an explanation) before I disappear. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get to the hospital. I'm a birth partner.

Enjoy.

**Chapter Four**

Willow stared open-mouthed at the blue woman in front of her. Just being near her was like being bathed in warm light. She'd never felt such pure energy before. It made her whole body buzz and her fingertips tingle. She barely even noticed the huge grin on John's face as he watched her reaction.

"Willow, this is Zhaan," said John. "She's a Delvian. Her species evolved from _flora_."

Willow's head snapped round to look at him so fast that he worried for a moment that she might've injured it. Clearly not though, because she whipped it back round to stare at Zhaan again. Her mouth closed, opened, closed again and finally settled on open.

"Zhaan, meet Willow, Moya's newest arrival." John said to Zhaan, shepherding Willow into the room when it became apparent that she wasn't going to move on her own.

"Welcome child," Zhaan greeted her with a kindly smile. "I am Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan."

"My... my name is Willow Rosenberg," Willow managed to reply to her.

"She claims to be from Earth," Aeryn interjected from the doorway.

"Impossible," Zhaan declared, drawing back from Willow, her face becoming cold and hard.

Shocked and hurt by her reaction, Willow looked at John for reassurance. He looked just as confused as her.

"What?" he exclaimed. "How do you know that? You didn't even check her with the scanner!"

"John, you yourself told me that your species possesses no psychic abilities," Zhaan said in a conciliatory tone.

"You mean, she does?" Aeryn asked.

"I sense... potential in her," Zhaan told her.

"Look, this is crazy!" Crichton exploded. "Just... put her in the comfy chair, do your scanning thing and you'll see. Zhaan," John looked meaningfully at the Delvian priestess. "She's from Earth. I know it."

"Very well," Zhaan gave way to him, sure that the results of the scan would prove her correct. "Up you get," she told Willow, patting the surface of the bed. "This won't take long."

Hesitantly, Willow sat down on the bed and swung her legs up onto it. "Will it hurt?" she asked nervously as Zhaan turned to pick up a small black device.

"Of course not," said Zhaan, shocked at the thought.

"Okay..." Willow said, settling herself down on the bed. "Wait! Does it involve probing? Because I'm a big no on the probing."

John chuckled, "No probing," he reassured her. "I promise."

Relieved, Willow laid back and submitted while Zhaan waved the black remote up and down her body. A picture flickered into life across the room and Willow blinked at it in surprise. She couldn't read the writing that hovered in mid-air, but she guessed from the picture of a body, that it was probably supposed to be her.

"By the Goddess..." Zhaan whispered, staring at the display in amazement.

"See," John said with a huge grin. "Human."

"It would appear so," agreed Zhaan. "And in perfect health."

"Told ya," John said happily.

"So you did," said Zhaan, shutting off the scanner and placing the remote down. "However did you get here, my dear?" she asked Willow as she sat up.

"She doesn't remember," John answered for her, helping her off the bed. "C'mon Willow, me and Aeryn'll show you around," looking at the doorway, he was surprised to find that it was empty. When had Aeryn left? "Or not. Guess it's just you and me."

Relieved that she hadn't had to lie to the blue alien, Willow smiled tentatively at her before following John out of the room. Left alone, Zhaan re-activated the scanner, comparing the previous data she had taken of Willow with the fresh information she had just seen. Apart from the fact that one set of readings had been taken while Willow was unconscious and the other had not, they were identical.

Still perturbed, Zhaan activated the com link on her cuff, "Pilot?"

"Yes, Zhaan?" Pilot replied.

"Can you run a full diagnostic of the medical scanner?" asked Zhaan.

"Certainly."

"Then please do so."

"It will take some time," said Pilot. "Zhaan?"

"Yes Pilot?"

"You do not believe that Willow Rosenberg is a human?"

Zhaan sighed, "I do not know," she admitted. "I believe it is best to be absolutely certain. We still have no idea how she appeared onboard Moya."

"I understand," Pilot said. "I shall notify you as soon as I know the results of the diagnostic check."

"Thank you Pilot."

**l**

Human. This... Willow really was human. Aeryn roamed Moya's passageways in a daze as she tried to absorb the revelation and all that it meant. Crichton had almost seemed to glow with happiness when he looked at her. With a female of his own species on Moya, would he continue to find her company as appealing? What if he and the human tralk paired up? She would have to leave Moya.

Finding herself outside the hangar bay doors, Aeryn remembered the transport pod full of supplies. Might as well make herself useful while she was here, she thought, waving her hand over the door controls.

Entering the room, she was surprised to find that D'Argo and Chiana were already there, talking quietly to each other as they unloaded the transport pod. She turned to go, seeking solitude, but it was too late. They had already seen her.

"Aeryn, wait!" D'Argo called and she stopped. "Is it true?" he asked.

Squaring her shoulders, Aeryn turned back around, "Is what true, D'Argo?" she asked although she knew what exactly he wanted to know.

"This, this Willow chick," Chiana said, glancing at D'Argo and edging forward. "She really from Earth?"

"She's certainly human," Aeryn told them. "Zhaan's scan just confirmed it."

"Yeah, but is she from Earth?" asked Chiana.

"She says she is," Aeryn said.

"But you do not believe her," said D'Argo.

Aeryn sighed, "No," she admitted, looking him in the eye for the first time.

**l**

"To your right, we have Moya's amnexus chamber," John told Willow, pointing it out. "Leaves whites whiter than white!"

"I'm never going to remember my way around," Willow said, staring into the room with wide eyes as they passed it by.

"Ah, you'll get the hang of it," said John. "Won't take you more than a weeken. Week."

"I won't be here that long," Willow said confidently. "I've got to get back to Sunnydale."

John snorted, "Yeah, good luck with that!" glancing at Willow, he noticed her crestfallen expression and immediately felt as though he'd kicked a puppy.

"Look," he said. "All I'm sayin' is it's not that easy. You think I'd still be here if I'd found a way home? You don't even know how you got here. Hey," he stopped, taking hold of Willow's arm and forcing her to stop and face him. The sight of her tears made him feel like the worst kind of jerk. "First wormhole home I find, I'm taking you with me. Promise."

He tried very hard to forget about the fact that his module could only seat two as Willow sniffed, wiping the tears from her face with the cuff of her cardigan. Taking Willow would mean leaving Aeryn. Unless he took one of Moya's transport pods and left the module.

"But that could take years," said Willow. "You've already been out here for two. I hafta go home now, I've got to help my friends. I don't even know if they're okay!"

"Any reason they shouldn't be?" John asked.

Apart from the fact that the last time she'd seen them they'd all been going head-to-head with a Hell-Goddess bent on tearing Sunnydale apart to find a mystical key, which was actually Buffy's sister, Dawn? Willow could just imagine John's reaction if she actually said that and she had no desire to find herself locked up again. Yeah, she could easily free herself with a simple spell but she wanted to conserve her magic reserves until she could figure out a way home. Although how she was gonna do that without any books to research was a problem.

"Willow..." John pressed when the red-haired girl in front of him remained silent. "Is that why you were at the hospital?"

"What?" Willow asked, confused.

"Earlier, you said that you were at a hospital before you were here," said John. "Was one of your friends hurt?"

"Buffy," Willow said without thinking. "She... uh, fell."

Tucking her hair behind her ear, she set off up the passageway in an attempt to hide her agitation. John followed her, hurrying to catch her up and walk alongside her.

"Sorry," he said. "She gonna be okay?"

"I don't know," Willow said miserably. Was Buffy okay? Had she and the others managed to get away from Glory? What had happened after the teleportation spell had backfired and sent her here? What had happened to Tara when it had backfired?

"We'll get back," John told her. "We will."

"Yeah..." sighed Willow.

Together, the two displaced humans walked the passageways of Moya in silence, each thinking of their home planet and the people they had left behind there. For John, the pain of loss was dulled by time and the new relationships he had forged on board Moya and he drew comfort from the memories of a simpler life. But the grief was agonisingly fresh for Willow and she tortured herself by imagining the worst of fates for her friends and lover.

"Hey, you wanna go meet Pilot?" John suggested in an attempt to cheer them both up.

"Actually, I'm kinda tired," said Willow although she was still buzzing from her encounter with the sentient plant, Zhaan. Honestly, she really wanted to be alone right now. "It was night back in Sunnydale," she remembered with a pang.

"Okay, sure," said John, disappointed. Still, it wasn't as though she'd be gone tomorrow. He could talk to her then. Except that tomorrow they'd be in range of the planet where Stark had found the notice of Jothee's auction, he remembered. "Let's go find you some quarters."

"So what kind of spaceship is this?" Willow asked, seeing the disappointment on his face and feeling bad. "That peacekeeping woman, Miss Make-a-wrong-move-and-I'll-kill-you-in-six-different-ways..."

"Aeryn," John supplied, grinning at the description.

"She said it was a leviathan. Does that mean it's really big? Ooh, does it have big honkin' space guns?" Willow asked excitedly.

"No guns," said John and Willow pouted. "But she can starburst."

"Your ship can burst stars?" Willow said, horror-stricken.

John laughed at both her expression and question, "No," he said when he could. "It's how Moya jumps from one point in space to another. She starbursts."

"You mean, faster-than-light?" Willow asked, her eyes wide. "But-but... Einstein! Relativity! Badness!"

"Einstein was wrong," John said, delighted to finally have someone to talk to who had not only heard of Einstein but understood at least the basics of his theory. "Starbursting's quicker than FTL, almost instantaneous, because Moya basically rides the energy stream between different space-time dimensions to travel to a different destination. Only problem is, there's no way to predict where we come out."

"That doesn't seem very practical," said Willow, frowning.

John shrugged, "It's a defence mechanism. We mainly use Moya's hetch drive to get around. That _is_ faster-than-light and has the added bonus of we know where we're going. Sometimes."

"It's not a very good defence mechanism," Willow said.

"Yeah, well, it's the only one Moya's got so..." John shrugged. "Got us out of some tight spots too," and into some tricky situations, he remembered.

"So, your ship has no guns, and your only means of defence is to jump to an unknown part of space," Willow summarised.

"Pretty much," said John.

"And there are bad guys out here?" Willow guessed.

John hesitated, not wanting to alarm her but not wanting to lie either. "Yeah," he admitted soberly. "Some worse than others."

"Then why don't you upgrade it?" asked Willow logically. "I mean, I realise I just got here and there's probably a perfectly good reason why not but why can't you just buy spaceship weapons and shields and stuff and install them on Moya?"

"It's not that simple," John told her, realising that he still hadn't told her the most important fact about Moya. He grinned, knowing that what he was about to say was going to blow her mind, "Moya's a biomechanoid ship. She's alive."

"Your ship is _alive_?" Willow exclaimed incredulously.

"Yup," said John. "We do however, have a defence screen that we managed to scavenge and cobble together." Even if it was fried at the moment, at least they still had it, he thought.

"It's alive..." Willow whispered, looking around her with wide wondering eyes as they walked towards Moya's crew quarters.

Remembering his own reaction to Moya's sentient status, John grinned and let her take her moment to adjust to the information. Moving ahead of her slightly, he took the left-hand passageway at a junction, only to dive back around the corner, dragging Willow with him, as he caught sight of Scorpius strolling towards them with a smile on his black lips.

"What's wrong?" Willow asked him, worried and more than a little panicked as he continued to hold onto her tightly.

"Do me a favour," John whispered, tilting his head in the direction of Scorpius' footsteps. "Tell me if you see a really evil looking alien coming towards us."

She stretched in his grasp to peep around the corner and he felt her answer shudder through her small frame.

"Frell!" he swore, resting his head against the wall until Scorpius' voice suddenly whispered in his ear.

_No, John... no, John... You're wrong, John... wrong, John..._

"What do we do?" Willow asked him, terrified.

John waved his hand by his ear in reply, looking annoyed. Willow frowned, not knowing what he meant.

"John?" she whispered urgently.

_...so very wrong, John..._

He flapped his arm again, barely seeming to notice her. Was the alien doing this to him, she wondered with mounting horror. She had to stop it.

_That's not me, John... Not this-_

Scorpius' whisper broke off in a hiss of surprise as Willow's eyes turned as black as Chiana's, inky darkness spilling out from her pupils until even the whites of her eyes were black and empty. Moya's deck seemed to lurch under his feet as John stared at her.

"What the...?" he said as Willow broke free from the loose hold he had on her arm and turned to face the oncoming danger.

"Goddess Hecate, work thy will..."

**'Scape-ism's**** (in order used)**

Tralk: Slang, roughly meaning 'tramp'. And not the homeless kind.

Weeken: Unit of time roughly equivalent to one Earth week.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note:**

False alarm. The contractions stopped after six hours and she's keeping her legs crossed. She's so selfish! ;) So (as you can see) I'm still writing. But only until Monday or her waters actually break. Whichever comes first. Bet he comes while I'm on holiday.

Anyway, I couldn't just leave you guys hanging. Although, I _was_ disappointed by how few of you realised that Willow's about to turn a certain alien (who's neither Scorpius nor Harvey) into a rat...

Enjoy.

**Chapter Five**

Feeling the need for some time spent in meditation, Zhaan was walking towards her quarters when she sensed a flicker of darkness ahead. She hesitated slightly and then began to run towards it as the feeling grew, flicking the com unit attached to her sleeve on.

"Pilot, what's happening?" she asked as Moya lurched.

"Unknown!" Pilot reported as Zhaan sped towards the dark power ahead. "Moya is experiencing some sort of energy drain!"

Rounding the corner of the curved passageway, Zhaan saw Willow ahead, surrounded by a swirling vortex of bright energy as she faced Rygel. Desperately, she increased her speed, but she knew that she would get there too late.

"Before thee, let the unclean thing crawl!" Willow chanted, directing the energy that surrounded her at Rygel.

"No!" Zhaan cried out as Rygel screamed in terror.

Desperately, the tenth-level Pa'u strove to throw a mental shield between Rygel and the energy racing towards him, successfully deflecting the attack. The redirected energy surrounded a passing DRD, hiding it from sight as Zhaan finally reached Willow. A well-placed blow to the neck from the side of Zhaan's hand sent the black-eyed woman tumbling to the floor. Panting, Zhaan looked up from her unconscious form into Crichton's shocked blue eyes as he stumbled shakily forward.

"Zhaan, the energy drain has stopped now, but I've lost contact with one of the DRD's I sent to investigate," Pilot told Zhaan over her com.

As one, the three shipmates turned to look as, on the floor, a rat that had until very recently been a DRD squeaked in confusion.

"What the hell!"

**l**

"What happened?" demanded D'Argo as he, Chiana and Aeryn met up with the others as they came out of the unused quarters they'd locked the new human into before. "Pilot was extremely vague, even for Pilot."

"What happened?" Rygel exclaimed as Crichton waved his hand over the door controls. "I'll tell you what happened. That black-eyed bitch tried to kill me!"

"Black-eyed?" Chiana said, confused. Did he mean her?

"She didn't try to kill you, Sparky," John said, staring through the door at the unconscious woman on the bed. "She tried to turn you into a rat."

"A raht?" said Aeryn, frowning. "What is a raht?"

"A small rodent-like creature," Zhaan explained to her. "Pilot has DRD's trying to locate it now."

"There's one onboard Moya?" asked Chiana, alarmed. "How did it get here?"

"Her!" Rygel said in a venomous voice, pointing at Willow. "She did it! I don't know how. Zhaan saved me."

Clearly they weren't going to get anything useful out of him, Aeryn thought. John was still staring at Willow so she turned to the only person left, "Zhaan?"

"It's true," the Delvian priestess said. "Somehow Willow was able to drain power from Moya and use it to try and attack Rygel. Fortunately, I was able to shield him but the energy she created hit one of the DRD's, transforming it into one of these rahts."

"A hoo-man did that?" D'Argo said skeptically.

"Oo-man!" scoffed Rygel. "Ha! I'll eat my thronesled if that, that _creature_ is another oo-man."

"Then start eating, your Highness," Aeryn advised him coldly. "Zhaan's scan confirmed it. She is a hoo-man."

"Pilot is running a diagnostic check on the scanner," Zhaan told her and regretted as Crichton's calculating gaze slid to her. Guiltily, she lowered her eyes.

"You think there's a chance she managed to somehow fool the scanner?" Aeryn asked her.

"I thought it best to be absolutely certain," Zhaan said, looking directly at Crichton.

"Great," said Chiana. "Whadda we do if she's not?"

"Flush her out an airlock!" suggested Rygel. "In fact, why don't we flush her out anyway?"

"I'll flush you out an airlock if you don't shut up," Aeryn snapped at him. "What if she is a hoo-man?"

"She's not human," John said flatly, finally stepping away from the door. "Our eyes don't turn black and we can't turn people into rats."

"Then what is she?" asked Chiana.

"I don't know!" said John. "We haven't heard from Scorpius lately... Maybe she's part of some twisted new plot of his. Hell, he's got my memories to play with!"

"What do you want to do?" D'Argo asked him.

Good question, thought John. "Pilot," he said, activating his com unit. "How much longer until this diagnostic is finished?"

"At least two arns, Commander," replied Pilot.

"Okay," said John, thinking. "Zhaan, are there any other tests you can do to find out what she is?"

Zhaan nodded, "A few. I have all the samples I'd need."

"Do them please," John said to her, turning to D'Argo as she bowed her head and hurried off in the direction of her lab. "D'Argo, if she got out once before..."

Rygel gasped at the reminder.

"I will stand guard," D'Argo promised, drawing his Qualta blade.

"Zhaan! Wait for me!" cried Rygel, steering his thronesled after her.

"Whadda ya want me to do?" Chiana asked.

"Just... stay outta my way," John told her, glancing at Aeryn. She nodded, understanding that he meant her as well and he transferred his gaze to the red-haired alien locked in the room. "I need to think," John told them before he walked away.

**l**

Carrying the last of the crates from the transport pod, Aeryn entered the empty galley. Dumping the crate on the side for someone else to unpack, she turned to leave only to jump back with an exclamation of disgust as she caught sight of the small creature with a long bald tail scampering across the floor. Drawing her pulse pistol she sighted and fired, once, twice, missing the creature both times before it scurried out of the open door. She pursued it into the passageway only to find that it had disappeared.

"Pilot, that...raht thing is on level seven," she said, activating her com unit. "I just chased it out of the galley. Don't know where it went after that."

"Thank you, Officer Sun," replied Pilot as Aeryn walked back into the galley.

"The galley? What was it doing there?" demanded Rygel over the coms.

Crouching in the corner of the room, Aeryn ran her finger through the crumbs she had found there as she replied, "Eating."

"The food?" asked Rygel, horrified.

"No, Rygel, the plates!" retorted Aeryn. "Of course the food. Zhaan?"

"Yes, Aeryn?" replied Zhaan.

"Have you finished the tests yet?" Aeryn asked, standing up.

"I'm running them again," Zhaan sighed.

"Why?" asked Aeryn. "What did you find?"

"I think it best if I discuss it with John first," said Zhaan.

"Fine," said Aeryn, trying desperately to hold onto her patience. "Crichton? Crichton!"

"He isn't responding to coms," Zhaan told her.

"Of course he isn't," Aeryn said to herself. "Pilot, can you locate him?"

"He's not showing up on any of my internal sensors and the DRD's are already fully occupied in locating the raht," said Pilot.

"Well, they're not doing a very good job," Rygel told him.

"Shut up Rygel, I don't see you helping," Aeryn snapped as she walked out of the galley.

"Me?" said Rygel. "What if that psychopath wakes up and tries to kill me again?"

"I'm sure we'd bear the loss somehow," Aeryn told him and switched off her coms.

If Crichton wasn't using his then they'd be no use to her in finding him and if Pilot's sensors couldn't find him then that meant he wasn't in any of his usual places. Which left only the areas he went when he was really upset about something and Aeryn knew just where to start looking. He'd had over an arn to think, now it was time for Crichton to do what he did most. Talk.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note:**

I suddenly realised that I haven't posted the settings for this story yet. Sorry if I've confused you, it's set just before A Clockwork Nebari (season two, episode eighteen) for Farscape and right at the end of Blood Ties (season five, episode thirteen) for Buffy. This is gonna be the last chapter for a bit because I haven't even started on the next one yet and I'm going to Prague in fifty hours!!! I really should pack.

Enjoy.

**Chapter Six**

"Oww..." Willow complained as she woke, rubbing the sore area of her neck.

Her eyes still shut, she frowned, hoping Buffy had managed to stake the vamp that had done it. Buffy... Glory... John Crichton... her memory came crashing back to her and her eyes snapped open.

"Note to self," she said, hissing in pain as she sat up. "Plants hit hard."

They'd put her back in the room she'd woken up in the first time and Willow was willing to bet that they'd locked her in again too. Well she'd gotten out once before and she'd do it again. With a little bit of magic...

"Aperio!"

Willow smiled happily as the lights in the room flickered and the doors slid open. Hopping off the bed, she hurried over to the exit, intending to make good her escape, only to have her plans foiled by the huge alien waiting outside. Squeaking in alarm, she hopped back inside the room. The alien growled at her and did something with his hand that shut the doors again.

Staring curiously through the bars, Willow took in the alien's strange appearance, the beaked nose, the long tattooed chin ending in a point and a ponytail that brushed his chest, the tentacles, the rings embedded in his collar bones, the tentacles... the huge sword he was holding. Willow swallowed nervously.

"Hi," she said tentatively. "I'm Willow."

She considered holding out her hand but decided against it. She didn't want the alien to think she was trying to attack him or something.

"So... what's your name?" she asked.

The alien hissed at her and she took a hasty step back, glad she hadn't tried to shake his hand. It was a he, right? It looked like a he, what with all the facial hair.

He touched a small device attached to his red robes that she hadn't noticed before and spoke, "Crichton."

"Cool," said Willow, creeping closer again. "Is that a communicator?"

"John," he ignored her.

"How does it work? Is it digital or analogue?"

"Crichton!"

"He and Aeryn aren't answering their coms at the moment," a breathy female voice replied. "What's up?"

"Who's that?" Willow asked curiously.

"His frelling prisoner's awake, that's what!" the alien replied to the unknown female, not to her.

"She's awake?" asked the female. "Can I see her?"

"No," growled the alien, touching the device again.

"Why not?" Willow asked him.

Evidently touching the communicator turned it on or off, because the female didn't speak again and neither did the alien, choosing to fold his arms and glare at Willow instead.

"She seemed nice," Willow told him. "You... you're just plain mean."

The alien rumbled slightly, his glare hardening.

"Meanie!" Willow said, and stuck her tongue out childishly.

The alien opened his mouth and Willow leapt aside as a long tongue whipped out of his mouth, missing her by millimetres. If her reflexes hadn't been honed by the years of nightly peril she had faced in her hometown it would have probably hit her. And she probably didn't want to find out what would happen if his froggy tongue touched her, thought Willow.

"Okay," she said shakily. "That was gross."

The alien smirked at her.

**l**

John stood on the observation deck, rolling a metal ball between his hands, and stared out at the vast expanse of stars, wondering which, if any of them, was his solar system. He'd been in the Uncharted Territories for two years now and he had yet to see a single constellation he recognised. He still missed them.

"Hey."

Aeryn's voice came from behind him but he didn't turn to greet her. He wasn't ready to talk. Not yet.

"Hey," he replied as her soft footsteps approached.

She stood next to him, so close he could feel the heat from her body, and stared straight ahead at the stars.

"Hey," she said softly, a smile in her voice.

"Hey," John repeated and took a sidelong peek at her as she frowned, trying to work out how to untrump his trump.

"Hey," she said again, more firmly.

"Aeryn..." John sighed. Why wouldn't she just drop it?

"What?" she asked.

"I don't want to talk about it," John told her.

"You?" said Aeryn. "Not want to talk?"

Crichton turned to go and Aeryn mentally swore. Obviously not the right thing to say. She was no good at this!

"Crichton, wait!" she said, catching hold of his arm. He stopped and half-turned back towards her. "Whether you talk about it or not, you're going to have to face up to it."

"Why, Aeryn!" asked Crichton. "When denial always works out so well for us?"

"She speaks Enk-less, Crichton," Aeryn reminded him. "She didn't have any translator microbes. She thinks she's from Erp!"

"I know."

"Why she's here, however she's here, is somehow connected to you," Aeryn continued. "I don't pretend to know what she is or how and why she did what she did but-"

"She was protecting me," blurted Crichton.

"What?" asked Aeryn.

"The whole trying to turn Sparky into a rat thing?" said Crichton. "She was trying to protect me."

"That makes no sense," said Aeryn, frowning.

"I know," John said. "Why did she think I needed protecting from Rygel, of all people? And why would she even try if she was sent here by Scorpius? Unless she's supposed to keep me safe until she delivers me to him. But from _Rygel_?"

"Well, she did call him a daeman frawg," Aeryn pointed out. "But that's not what I meant."

"Demon _frog_," John corrected absently. "It isn't?"

"No," said Aeryn. "Why did she think you needed protecting in the first place?" Crichton ducked his head, refusing to meet her eyes and Aeryn frowned, "John?"

"That might be, maybe, kinda my fault," John said.

Aeryn's frown deepened, "How?"

"You know I've been having these flashes..." said John.

"Of Scorpius," Aeryn nodded. "Yes, I know."

"Right," said John. "Well, I didn't _see_ Rygel, I saw Scorpius. I grabbed Willow and hid. Asked her if she saw him too. Then Scorpy starts whisperin' in my ear, her eyes turn black and she tries to turn Sparky into a rat."

"You asked her if she could see Scorpius too?" asked Aeryn.

"Yes. No," John realised. "I asked her if she saw an evil alien. Figured she wouldn't know who Scorpius was unless I described him."

John frowned. How had she looked at Rygel and got evil? Frog, sure...

"What did she say?" Aeryn wanted to know.

"She didn't really say anything, just kinda shuddered," John told her absently. "Aeryn, I think I know why she tried to attack Rygel."

"Why?" asked Aeryn, wondering if she'd understand the answer.

"She called Rygel a demon frog," Crichton told her as if it meant something significant. "And I asked her if she saw something evil. But I don't get why she would think Rygel was a demon."

"I don't understand," Aeryn told him. "What's a daeman?"

"It's a mythological creature," explained Crichton. "Pure evil. Works for the devil."

"Delv-ill?"

"She said something about hell," John said, rolling the metal ball between his hands as he tried to remember what. "Her friend... Buffy, she went to hell once and didn't tell her that there were frog demons there."

"Buffy?" Aeryn made a disgusted face. "Is that a common Earp name?"

"Not remotely," said John. "God!" he threw the metal ball away in frustration. "The more I think about this the more questions I have."

"Then it's probably a good thing that Zhaan has some answers for you," Aeryn said to him. "C'mon."

"She finished her tests?" Crichton asked. "When?"

"About an arn ago but you turned off your coms," said Aeryn.

"And?" Crichton pressed.

"And she won't tell me," Aeryn told him. "She wants to talk to you first."

"That doesn't sound good."

"Well you won't know until you talk to her," said Aeryn. "So come on."

**l**

Standing guard in the passageway, D'Argo watched the red-haired girl inside the cell like a vorloc bird, alert for any sign that she might be about to turn him into a rodent. Privately he wondered if she could stop talking long enough to try. She'd shed the outer layer of her strange clothes and the bright cardigan lay discarded on the bed as she paced back and forth.

"C'mon Willow, think!" she was saying to herself now. "You got here, there must be a way back... maybe if I tried the spell again...? All I need is some more powdered zircon, a second to act as anchor... and a magic-proof hell Goddess," she sighed, sagging slightly before she stopped walking and squared her shoulders. "Okay... Plan B."

Plan B? That was usually a bad plan. Or a good one, depending on whose side you were on. Right now, thought D'Argo as he stood outside her cell, it was probably bad. He held his Qualta blade ready, anticipating an attack.

The girl closed her eyes tightly and D'Argo couldn't see if they'd turned black or not as she clicked her heels three times, chanting, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home."

Cautiously she opened one green eye, looking directly at D'Argo, "Darn," she said, opening the other eye.

D'Argo snorted. That was her plan B?

"Is that a smile?" she asked him, her head tilted to one side as she stared at him. "It is!"

Hurriedly, D'Argo wiped the smile from his face, growling slightly at her as he tried to look even more menacing. The last thing he wanted to do was show any sign of weakness in front of her.

"You can't fool me Mister-tall-tentacley-and-growly," she said, approaching the door separating them. "You smiled!"

"I did not," denied D'Argo.

"You did too," she told him. "I saw you. You were all smiley and superiorey."

D'Argo retreated into silence, hoping that she'd get the message and stop talking. Hoping, but not really expecting.

"So what is your name?" the girl asked him.

"D'Argo?" Chiana's voice came from his left.

"Chiana!" said D'Argo, turning to face her. "I said no."

D'Argo? It kinda suited him, thought Willow, trying to catch a glimpse of the other person, this Chiana. She sounded like the same person who'd talked to D'Argo over his communicator but she was standing too far down the hallway for Willow to see her.

"Aw, c'mon," she was saying now. "Just a little peek."

"It's too dangerous," D'Argo objected. "What if she turns you into a raht?"

"Rat," Willow corrected before she could stop herself and he shot an annoyed look at her. "I promise I won't. Cross my heart," she swore, doing just that.

"See," said the unseen Chiana.

"No," said D'Argo, holding his hand up in her direction.

"Ahh, but she didn't hurt me before," said Chiana. "Maybe-maybe it's just Rygel she doesn't like. Can't blame a girl for having taste."

"No, Chiana!" raged D'Argo and Willow's eyes went wide as she stared at the alien. "If you want to make yourself useful then find Crichton and tell him his prisoner won't frelling shut up!"

Chiana was silent for a moment before she replied, "Fine," she said. "I'm sleeping in _my_ quarters tonight."

"Fine," said D'Argo, watching her walk away. "But stay _off_ this tier."

"Frell you!" she shouted at him as she turned the corner.

D'Argo sighed as he resumed his position in front of the cell doors. Once she'd calmed down, Chiana would realise that he was only trying to look after her. Which would probably lead to another argument. He growled slightly at the thought as he met the green eyes of the red-haired girl he was protecting Chiana from.

"Wow," she said. "Are you always that mean to your girlfriend?"

**l**

"Hey Zhaan," John greeted the blue Delvian as he strode into her lab, Aeryn trailing behind him. "So what's the what?"

Zhaan looked up from one of her gadgets, frowning in confusion, "I don't understand."

"Heard you had some answers for me," John explained, perching on the edge of the bed. "What kind of alien we talking here?"

"I'm just checking the results now," said Zhaan, glancing down at her gizmo.

"Still?" Aeryn frowned. "You were checking them half an arn ago."

"Well I'm checking them again," Zhaan told her snappily. "Rygel, put that back."

"Okay..." said Crichton as the diminutive Dominar sulkily replaced the vial of bessom oil he had just slipped up his sleeve. "What did they say the first two times you ran them?"

"John..." Zhaan sighed.

"Zhaan," John said firmly. "What did they say?"

Zhaan sighed and told him, "Apart from the usual chromosomal differences you'd expect between two opposite members of the same species, her DNA is identical to yours. She has the same type of blood as you. Even some of the bacteria she's carrying are identical to those I found when we first met you. John, are you absolutely certain that she can't be hoo-man?"

"Who cares if she's oo-man?" said Rygel. "The longer she's onboard Moya, the more danger we're in."

"I'm not exactly certain of anything anymore, Zhaan" said John. "Okay... You said some bacteria, right?" Zhaan nodded. "So it's possible she's from another planet, and she used some sort of weird hidden alien weapon to attack Rygel?"

"I found nothing that looked like a weapon when I first examined her," said Zhaan.

"Yeah," John said. "Doesn't explain the black eyes either."

"Or the power loss Moya experienced," Aeryn reminded them.

"Search your heart, John," Zhaan advised. "What does it tell you?"

John closed his eyes. What _did_ his gut say about Willow? He opened his eyes, "She's from Earth," he said and his voice cracked a little as he spoke his planet's name. "The stuff she says, the way she says it... hell, the goddamn _rat_!"

"But..." Aeryn prompted, sensing one coming.

How did he trust his instincts when he desperately wanted them to be right? And when everything he knew told him differently.

"Human's can't turn DRD's into rats," he reminded them. "We just write fairytales about people who can."

"What kind of tales?" Zhaan asked curiously.

"Witches, fairy godmothers, vampires, unicorns... stuff like that," John told her. "Pure fantasy."

"Your people also write about aliens," Aeryn pointed out.

"Yeah, well, that's sci-fi, Aeryn," John said. "Whole other genre."

"Crichton? Zhaan?" Pilot's head appeared on the clamshell.

"Yes, Pilot?" said John.

"The diagnostic I was running is now complete," Pilot told them.

"And...?" John prompted.

"The scanner is working at ninety-two percent efficiency," said Pilot. "All its systems are fully functional. Early DRD scans confirm its findings."

"Early scans?" said Aeryn. "Have you got any recent ones?"

"I'm having a great deal of difficulty with the DRD's at the moment," Pilot told her. "They're refusing to go anywhere near tier three."

"I don't blame them, Pilot," said Rygel. "As the intended victim of this heinous act, I extend my condolences for your loss."

"Thank you, Rygel," said Pilot, looking suspiciously at the Hynerian.

"I feel sure that you will agree with me," the Dominar continued loftily. "Our safest course of action is to flush the bitch! Ow!" he cried out in pain as Aeryn hit him.

"Violence is abhorrent to Moya," said Pilot although it was easy to see that his heart wasn't in it. "However..."

"No-one's flushing anyone!" Crichton said.

Grumbling discontentedly, Pilot turned away and his image vanished from the clamshell.

"Pity," Rygel said darkly.

"Shut it, your Lowness," Aeryn told him.

"Okay..." John said, trying to get back onto the subject. "She's human. So how the hell did she get here?"

"Why don't you ask her?" said a new voice and they all turned to see Chiana standing in the doorway. "She's awake."

**l**

"...Not that your sword's not nifty, but Buffy's troll hammer is way cooler. She got it from this troll God who was really Anya's ex, Olaf, only she put a spell on him which is why D'Hoffryn offered her a job and it totally wasn't my fault that he got released from that crystal..."

**'Scape-ism's**

Aperio: Spell used by Willow to unlock her cell doors. Latin meaning 'open'.

Vorloc bird: Hawk-like bird.


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note**

Dear Reader,

I am a bad, bad person for making you wait so long for an update when I promised to have it done by the end of last week. But let me tell you a quick story and perhaps you will understand and possibly even forgive me.

Went to Prague on Monday, broke my big toe on Tuesday, flew back on Thursday. Arrived in my home city at one in the morning on Friday, threw my suitcase through the front door and rushed to the maternity hospital. Four hours later, my nephew was born. Snuggled with my beau on Saturday, slept most of Sunday and got my toe x-rayed on Monday. Hospital gave me crutches.

**Chapter Seven**

"Finally!" D'Argo exclaimed irritably as he caught sight of Crichton, Aeryn and Chiana striding down the passageway towards him. "Where the hezmana have you been?"

"Doin' some homework," John told D'Argo as they reached him. He turned to Willow, "Something which you seem to have done."

As Willow frowned in confusion, wondering what he meant, John turned back to D'Argo only to do a double-take at the red-haired girl when the words printed on her jumper registered in his mind. He stared at it in disbelief and then giggled, a high-pitched, slightly unhinged sound.

"She's even wearing a 'Cowboy Chick' sweater," he commented to Aeryn and D'Argo.

"John..." Aeryn said uncertainly.

"No, Aeryn!" said John, holding his hand up to silence her. "I'm not buying it any more," he told Aeryn as he looked directly at Willow. "She's too good."

"Zhaan's tests confirmed she's human," Aeryn reminded him.

"And?" said John as D'Argo looked sharply at Chiana. Chiana nodded at the large Luxan. "For all we know Scorpy grew her in a lab and implanted her with fake memories."

"They can do that out here?" asked Willow, shaken at the thought. "Why would they do that?"

"Shh!" John hushed her as she looked set to start babbling again, his finger over his lips as he glared at her.

"Hey," Chiana said to him, shifting her weight nervously back and forth. "Scorpy, Scorpy doesn't have _all_ your memories, right?" she asked him when he turned around to look at her.

"Right," said John, wondering where she was going with this.

"So, so why don't you try asking her questions about stuff he doesn't know about," the grey-skinned Nebari suggested.

"It's not a bad idea," D'Argo said to John as he hesitated.

"Okay, fine!" John said, holding his hands up in surrender. He turned back to the frightened red-head in the cell, trying to remember something Scorpius didn't know. Ah! "Who's the President of the United States?"

"George Bush," Willow answered promptly.

"Ha! Wrong!" John gloated. "Bill Clinton's President. George Bush was President from nineteen eighty-nine to nineteen ninety-three."

"And his son, George W. Bush was sworn in as President two weeks ago," said Willow.

"Last year was an election year," John realised. "Damn! She's good," he said to Aeryn. "Uh... okay... _Is _the Pope Catholic?"

"Yes."

"What's the answer to life, the universe and everything?

"Forty two," replied Willow and the collected aliens present frowned in confusion.

"My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die," Crichton told her in a strange accent.

Willow bounced up and down, clapping her hands with a delighted smile, "The Princess Bride!" she exclaimed. "I love that movie! Okay, um... Ah'll be baahck," she spoke the last three words in another, stranger accent.

"The Terminator. Heeere's Johnny!" said John and Aeryn shivered slightly as she remembered the last time she'd heard him say those words.

"The Shining," identified Willow. "Oh! Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering," she quoted and John frowned in confusion. "Star Wars?" she prompted. "The Phantom Menace? Episode one?"

"Missed it," John shrugged. "Any good?"

Willow grimaced, "They CGI'd Yoda."

"That's just wrong," said John, appalled.

"This make sense to either a you?" Chiana asked D'Argo and Aeryn quietly as they watched the interrogation.

"Not a word," Aeryn admitted.

"Frell no," D'Argo told them. "The verbal diarrhoea is clearly a species trait."

"Hey!" the two humans objected together.

As D'Argo had the decency to at least look a little embarrassed, John turned back to Willow, "Okay," he said to her. "You're from California?" Willow nodded. "Where?"

"Sunnydale," Willow told him.

"Never heard of it," John said dismissively.

"Isn't that a good thing?" Willow said. "I mean, if I was implanted with your memories, which I wasn't, then wouldn't I be from somewhere you've at least heard of?"

"Good point," John conceded. "But we're still left with the billion dollar question!" he stepped right up to the bars of Willow's cell, staring deep into her green eyes. "How did you get here?" he asked in a quiet whisper. "And don't tell me you don't know!" he added as Willow opened her mouth to reply. "'Cause I know you know I know you do!"

Willow shut her mouth, thinking fast. She would have to tell him the truth, but what if he didn't believe her? The John Crichton in front of her was not the easy-going man with the lazy grin whose image had been broadcasted across the world after his supposed death. This John Crichton was tense and on edge. Shadows haunted his eyes and he appeared to be a little... eccentric would probably be how Giles would describe it.

"Magic," she told him.

"Magic?" John said disbelievingly.

"I'm a witch," Willow explained, fishing her necklace out from underneath her sweater. "See? Pentacle. I did a spell and it went wrong. Somehow I ended up here."

"A spell!" John repeated, stepping back from Willow's cell with a wide grin. "Of course!"

"Where were you trying to go?" Chiana asked Willow curiously.

"Oh... um..." Willow said, staring at her. So the grey girl was Chiana, D'Argo's girlfriend. She recognised the breathy voice. Wow. She was hot! Bad Willow! Remember Tara. "Um... I wasn't really trying to go anywhere. I was trying to send Glory away."

"Glory?" asked Aeryn. "Who is Glory?"

Oops. "Glory..." Willow had really hoped they wouldn't ask that. "Glory's a hell Goddess who got kicked out of her realm and now she's looking for a mystical key to break down the barriers between dimensions to get back," she told them. "I'm not insane," she assured Crichton as he leant against the closed door of the opposite room.

"Prove it," he challenged.

Willow's jaw set and her face settled into the stubborn expression those in front of her would soon learn to call her resolve face. She gestured and D'Argo rose up to hover in mid-air as the lights in her cell switched off. Aeryn reacted instantly, snatching her pulse pistol from its holster on her thigh and aiming it at Willow as D'Argo and Chiana cried out and Crichton gaped at the sight.

"Put him down," Aeryn instructed Willow coldly.

Willow pouted and gently floated D'Argo back down to the floor. The second she released her hold on him, the lights in her cell came back on. Willow frowned up at them as Chiana fussed over D'Argo.

"You drained energy from Moya to do that," Aeryn scowled at Willow as she lowered her pulse pistol. "Just as you drained energy from her when you tried to turn Rygel into a raht."

"A rat," Willow correctly her absently as she thought about what she had just said. "Really? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. Did I hurt her? Oh, Goddess, I hope I didn't hurt her!"

"No," John told her. "Rygel's fine too."

"The frog?" Willow shuddered. "But... wasn't he attacking you?"

"No," said John as D'Argo and Chiana stared at him in confusion. "Rygel's one of us. Unfortunately."

"But-" said Willow.

"It's true," Aeryn told her before she could say any more. "You attacked an innocent member of this crew."

D'Argo snorted, "Hardly innocent."

"Nevertheless..." Aeryn said to him.

"Well how was I supposed to know?" Willow asked indignantly. "You-you should make him wear a sign! Saying 'I am not evil' so that new people don't get all confused. He's scary!"

John snorted, suppressing laughter. "Sparky? Scary?" he chuckled.

"Hey!" said Willow. "You might not think it Mister-I-am-not-afraid-of-frogs, but I'll have you know that he's scarier than a fyarl demon in mating season! And I should know!"

"Fyarl?" John questioned.

"Yeah," said Willow. "Ugly demon. Two horns that curve back around," she told him, demonstrating. "Spiky shoulders."

"You mean a Tekkaiden?" asked Chiana.

"Um... no?" said Willow uncertainly.

"So demons are real too now?" said John. "What's next? Werewolves? Dracula? Leprechauns?" he wiggled his fingers at each mention of a mythological creature.

"Um..." Willow said. "I'm not sure about leprechauns..."

"Aw c'mon!" John exclaimed. "You gotta be kidding me!"

"Maybe I should start at the beginning," Willow said uncertainly.

"It's probably a good idea," Aeryn told her, snapping her pulse pistol back into its holster and folding her arms.

**l**

Rygel seethed quietly in a corner of Zhaan's lab. Just because that black-eyed bitch was another frelling human, she was going to get away with trying to turn him into a rodent. Him! Dominar to over six hundred billion subjects... a rodent! How could he let such a thing go unpunished? He chuckled evilly as he plotted ways to get his revenge.

**l**

**'Scape-ism's**

Hezmana: Expletive, meaning Hell.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note**

Sorry about the long wait but I've only got eleven weeks (not including Easter and half-term) to get all of my college work finished so it's taking precedence at the moment. Plus, the new boyfriend is _majorly_ eating into my writing time. Not that I'm complaining. *smiles dreamily*

Hope you like.

**Chapter Eight**

"My hometown, Sunnydale, is built on top of a mystical convergence of energy," said Willow. "Early Spanish settlers called it la Boca del Infierno. The mouth of hell. I actually went to high school on top of it. But I didn't find out about any of that until I was fifteen.

"One day, a new girl came to school. She was beautiful, popular, bubbly... all the things I wasn't, and she actually wanted to be friends with _me_. She told me to seize the day and I did. I let a boy pick me up at the local club and we left to go get ice cream. He took me on a shortcut through a graveyard, lured me into a crypt and attacked. The new girl, Buffy, she showed up with Xander and fought the vampires-"

"Vampires? Plural?" John interrupted.

"Another vampire, Darla, had taken my friend Jesse," Willow explained. "Buffy distracted the vampires so we could get away but we got separated. They took Jesse. Buffy couldn't save him.

"She took us to her Watcher, Giles, the next day and he told us all about vampires and demons and how Buffy's the only girl in the world who can stop them."

"What?" the interruption came from both John and Chiana this time.

"She's the Slayer," Willow told them. "Mystically empowered with the strength and skill to fight the forces of darkness. Except she died and Xander brought her back with CPR so now there's two Slayers. But Faith went rogue and started working for the Mayor. He was trying to turn into a pure demon but we managed to stop him by blowing up the school at Graduation."

"Cool," John commented.

"Not so much," said Willow. "But the Mayor did eat our evil Principal. Anyway, long story short, I dated a werewolf in high school, Buffy fought Dracula six months ago and Giles says that leprechauns aren't real but I think he's just humouring Buffy."

"What about the people you mentioned before?" asked Aeryn. "The ones who aren't human."

"Angel and Spike are vampires," Willow told her. "But they're good now. Well, Angel did lose his soul once and Spike doesn't exactly have one but the government implanted a chip into his head last year that hurts him whenever he tries to harm a human so he kinda works with us sometimes."

"The government know about this?" John asked incredulously.

"Um... yeah," said Willow. "We had to sign official forms and stuff to say we wouldn't talk about it."

"I wouldn't worry about it," John told her. "Who am I gonna tell?"

"Question," said Chiana, her head tilted to one side. "How come Crichton never heard of any a this?"

"Sunnydale Syndrome," Willow explained with a shrug. "People rationalise things that they can't explain. Or they sell their story to the Enquirer."

"And no-one believes them anyway," said John.

"There was another name," said Aeryn. "A third one."

"Anya," said Willow and Aeryn nodded slightly. "She used to be a vengeance demon but something went wrong; I'm not sure what, she won't say, she just glares at Giles and he gets all flustered and confused and starts polishing his glasses..."

"Get to the point," Aeryn told her, a hint of menace in her smooth voice.

"She got stuck in the body of a teenager and now she dates Xander," Willow told her in a rush.

D'Argo raised his brows in disbelief, "Your friend is dating a vengeance demon?"

"Former vengeance demon," Willow corrected him. "Anya's human now."

"So how did the government get involved in all this?" John asked her.

"They were trying to create a super-soldier. The leader of the project, our psychology professor, spliced together a... a Frankenstein's monster of human, demon and cyborg parts she called Adam," Willow told him.

"By the Gods..." said D'Argo softly, not wanting to disturb her but needing to express his horror.

"Adam rebelled against his programming and killed her," Willow continued. "He wanted to create an army of creatures just like him. He waited until the holding cells of the underground base were full and then released all of the demons."

"How did you stop him?" Chiana asked, rapt.

"An enjoining spell," explained Willow. "I was the spirit, Buffy was the hand, Xander the heart and Giles was the mind. Then Buffy beat the crap out of him."

"Cool," said John.

"Yeah," agreed Willow, smiling at the memory. "The nightmare afterwards, not so much," she frowned.

A squeaking noise broke into the conversation and they all turned towards the sound. A large russet brown rat sat in the middle of the hallway and stared back at them. Its pointed noise twitched as it delicately sniffed the air.

Aeryn drew her pulse pistol and the rodent squeaked in alarm, dropping back down onto all fours and scampering forward just in time to dodge the pulse shot that impacted on the spot where it had been sitting a scant second ago. As it ran past Crichton, he bent, picking the creature up by the loose skin between its shoulders. It squeaked frantically as he straightened, its small limbs flailing wildly and then calmed.

"There're a few house rules," he told Willow, waving his spare hand over the door controls. "You made it, you look after it," he said as the doors opened. He handed the rat over to her.

"No draining energy from Moya," Aeryn said firmly as Willow struggled to hold the squirming rat.

"Unless absolutely necessary," John added. "All I'm saying is it could come in handy next time we get boarded," he said to Aeryn as she glared sharply at him.

"Fine," Aeryn said tightly. "No turning Rygel into a rt."

"Ahhh," mourned Chiana as Crichton and Willow both corrected Aeryn.

"So, do you get boarded regularly?" Willow asked them all, cradling her new pet rat.

**l**

"Hey Zhaan!" John said, leading Willow into the Delvian's lab. "You got a cage or something Willow can borrow for Marvin?"

"Marvin?" questioned Zhann with a frown, straightening from her lab bench.

"Yeah," said Willow, showing her the rat she held. "He's not a boy and he's not a girl and I figured, hey he's gotta be pretty bummed about being a rat so Marvin!" she smiled brightly.

"I see," Zhaan said slowly, even though she had no idea what the young woman was going on about.

Rygel, unnoticed in the corner, had stiffened at the first sight of Willow. As he listened to her speak, anger flooded his soul. A roar of rage filled the room and the small Dominar charged his thronesled across the room to ram into Willow.

"Rygel!" Zhaan called out in admonition as Willow cried out in pain.

Snarling, Rygel backed up his thronesled for another run at her as she dodged behind Crichton, craven bitch that she was.

"Sparky!" John warned, grabbing hold of the armrests of Rygel's thronesled.

"Let go, Crichton!" Rygel said menacingly. "That bitch tried to turn me into a rodent."

"Rygel!" John shouted threateningly. He grimaced as he felt Willow's trembling increase and moderated his tone. "For God's sake Sparky, she's more scared of you than you are of her!"

"Boll-yotz!" growled Rygel. "The tralk's a menace!"

"Look," said John, trying to keep his temper. "She's promised not to turn you into a rat."

"You're seriously going to let her stay on board?" demanded Rygel incredulously.

"Damn straight," John told him seriously.

"Fine!" said Rygel, wrestling his thronesled free from Crichton's grasp. "I know how to act," he said threateningly as he floated out of the room.

Watching him go, John felt Willow shudder behind him. Turning around to face her, he took in her pale face and haunted eyes at a glance. Damn, she had it worse than he thought!

"Are you alright, my dear?" Zhaan asked her, concerned.

"F-fine," Willow said, feeling better as the Delvian approached her. "Talking, floating frogs are _really_ creepy!"

"Willow is ranidaphobic," John told Zhaan, hoping it would make it through the translator microbes. Judging by the way she frowned though, it hadn't. "She has frog fear."

"You are scared of Rygel?" Zhaan asked Willow, one corner of her mouth twitching upwards ever so slightly.

"He's scary!" Willow insisted. Why couldn't anyone else see it? Oh, yeah; aliens probably didn't know how terrifying frogs were.

Zhaan smiled, immediately covering it with her hand, "I'm sorry," she apologised. "It's just... I couldn't think of anyone less physically intimidating than Rygel. D'Argo on the other hand..."

"Cage?" John reminded her gently.

"Ah, yes," said Zhaan, going along with the subject change. "I believe I have something that might be suitable," she told them, moving towards a shelving unit at the back of her lab.

She crossed in front of a window and Willow's attention was distracted by the view of stars outside. She moved away from John's side, drawn to stand at the window and stare out into the vast expanse of space. The sight brought first wonder to her expressive face and then pain as she found herself wondering if Earth revolved around any of the stars she could see. Her throat tightened painfully and unshed tears burnt her eyes.

A hand landed on her shoulder and Willow jumped, turning to look up at John as he stood beside her, staring out of the window. At least she wasn't alone, she thought, turning back to the view with a small smile.

**'Scape-ism's**

Boll-yotz: Hynerian expletive. Roughly equivalent to 'bullshit'... I'm gonna hafta put the rating up, aren't I?


	9. Chapter 9

Gently setting Marvin down on the floor of the not-glass glass tank Zhaan had given her, Willow found herself smiling at the way the large red rat clashed with the vivid purple fibres that Zhaan had suggested she line the tank with. Marvin sniffed the fibres and immediately sneezed.

Concerned, Willow bent over the tank as the former DRD reared up on its hind legs, teetering until he remembered to balance himself with his tail, and looked up at her. Human and DRD-turned-rat stared solemnly at one another. Marvin's nose twitched rapidly and he squeaked once.

"It's only until I can figure out how to turn you back," Willow told him consolingly. Marvin almost seemed to sigh, dropping back down to crouch on the fibres he continued to stare up at her.

"Am I interrupting?" Aeryn's smooth voice came from the door behind Willow and made the red-haired witch jump.

"Um, hi!" turning around, Willow greeted the dark-haired peacekeeper. "No. What's up?"

Years of living on the Hellmouth meant that Willow neglected to invite Aeryn in and so she lingered uneasily just inside the door.

"I wanted to talk to you..." Aeryn began her carefully rehearsed speech.

"Okay," said Willow, smiling brightly at Aeryn as she sat down on her bed. Wondering what the other woman wanted, she patted the covers beside her. "Shoot."

This wasn't going at all like she had imagined, Aeryn thought as she crossed the room. Awkwardly, she sat down beside Willow.

"I wanted to say..." Aeryn began again and experienced a moment of pure panic as she realised that she couldn't remember what came next. Frell it! "If you're not from Earth... If you hurt him in any way... I will ensure your death is a long, lingering, and painful one."

Willow blinked. Wow! Good threat, she thought, excellent delivery with more than a hint of genuine menace. If she wasn't best friends with the Slayer, and therefore used to receiving death threats on an almost daily basis she would have been scared. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being one of Spike's most inventive threats and one being a threat from Harmony, she'd rate Aeryn's as a six point five.

"Did you hear me?" Aeryn asked Willow as the corners of the other woman's mouth curved slightly.

"If I hurt John you'll kill me," Willow repeated to prove that she had. "Slowly."

Suddenly Willow grinned as she realised, "You like him!"

"What?" asked Aeryn, caught off-guard and on the defensive.

Willow's grin widened and she bounced slightly on the hard bed, "You do! That's so cool! Does he like you too? Ooh! Are you a couple?"

"No!" Aeryn denied emphatically, alarmed by the turn in the conversation. This _really_ wasn't how she'd imagined this conversation would go.

"Why not?" Willow wanted to know. "If you like him and he likes you... Unless he doesn't like _like_ you..." Willow stopped herself from going any further, not wanting to cause Aeryn pain.

"Like like?" Aeryn repeated, her forehead creased in confusion.

"Never mind," Willow told her.

Humans used the strangest expressions, thought Aeryn. Like like... A silence broken only by Marvin's squeaks settled over the room.

"You wouldn't mind?" Aeryn asked suddenly, turning her head to look Willow in the eye.

"Mind what?" asked Willow, wrapped up in her own thoughts. "You and John?" Aeryn nodded, "Heck no! Why would I?"

Aeryn shifted awkwardly. Looking down at her hands lying loosely in her lap, she suddenly clenched them, wishing she had her pulse rifle. She'd rather face a battalion of Scarrans on her own than have this conversation.

"I'm... not human," she said awkwardly.

"And?" said Willow. "Neither was Angel and Buffy still dated him."

"You are from John's world!" Aeryn said, trying to explain her reasoning. "You are both human. It is only natural that you and he should..." she trailed off, unable to say the painful words.

"What?" Willow asked, confused. Realisation dawned, "Make babies? No, thanks. Not that John's not yummy, 'cause he is, but I'm gay now. I don't think Tara would like it if I hooked up with a dead astronaut while I was gone, even if he is hot and wears leather pants."

Already wondering what Willow's happiness had to do with her not objecting to a relationship between John and her, Aeryn frowned, "Tara?"

"My girlfriend," Willow explained. Goddess, she hoped she was okay...

"You're in a relationship with another woman?" Aeryn questioned, shocked by the thought. She had heard rumours of such deviant behaviour when she was a Peacekeeper but she had dismissed them as just that, rumours.

"Is that a problem?" Willow asked her, bristling slightly.

Aeryn thought carefully, "No," she decided slowly. "Is it a common practice on Erp?" she asked after a momentary hesitation.

Willow laughed.

**l**

Chiana trailed her fingertips over the broad expanse of D'Argo's chest, careful to avoid the metal rings embedded in his collar bones that he was so sensitive about. She sighed with satisfaction, using the grey leg she had slung over his hips to stroke his leg with her foot.

"Do you think she's really from Earth?" she asked, resuming the conversation they had been having before they had got distracted.

D'Argo sighed and his chest rumbled as he spoke, "Crichton seems to believe so."

"Yeah, but is she from Earth?" Chiana said pointedly. D'Argo turned his head to look at her, a disapproving expression on his face and she flushed slightly, her cheeks staining a darker shade of grey. "All I'm saying is that Crichton's not exactly the most stable person onboard Moya right now," she said defensively.

"You think he isn't capable of recognising a member of his own species," said D'Argo with a hint of censure in his voice as he withdrew slightly from her.

"I didn't say that," Chiana countered, drawing the slippery bronze sheet over her exposed breasts.

"You did," D'Argo told her, rolling off the bed and reaching for his trousers. "Crichton believes her," he continued, pulling his clothes on with jerky movements. "Why is it so hard for you to do the same?"

"Crichton never turned anything into a rodent," Chiana pointed out, sitting up in the tumbled bed, clutching the sheet to her chest.

D'Argo tried very hard not to notice the curve of her smooth thigh as it disappeared behind the covers. He swallowed, forgetting what she had just said. Something about Crichton... Chiana smiled sensually, following his gaze; she subtly flexed her leg, lowering the sheet slightly; he swallowed again, his clothes and the argument forgotten.

"Why are we fighting?" breathed Chiana, dropping the sheet entirely and kneeling up on the bed as she began to move towards him.

"I don't know," D'Argo said honestly, staring at her with an intense gaze. He still couldn't believe she'd chosen him. He hissed as she reached out and softly stroked one of his tankas. Growling, he grasped her arms and tumbled her backwards to lie sprawled on the bed, covering her with his body.

**l**

Crichton hummed tunelessly to himself as he fiddled with the Moya components of his module. There had to be a way to feed the excess energy that the hetchdrive he'd fitted generated back into the drained Earth battery. He just hadn't worked out how yet.

Happily engrossed in the inner workings of his module, he failed to hear Aeryn's soft footsteps as she entered the maintenance bay. Smiling at the sight of his legs protruding from underneath his module, Aeryn approached him quietly. She hadn't heard him sound so carefree in monens. Not since Empress Novia had informed him that her daughter carried his child. And she really didn't want to think about their time in the Breakaway Colonies.

Crichton reached for a tool that was just beyond his reach and Aeryn picked it up, handing it to him. His humming stopped the second he felt the tool slid into his hand and he quickly ducked out from underneath the Earth-built ship, relaxing as soon as he saw who was there.

"Hey," he said, standing up and reaching for a nearby rag on a workbench to wipe his hands. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Not long," Aeryn told him, a slight smile on her face as she stared at him.

"What?" asked John, frowning slightly. Why was she looking at him like that?

"Nothing," said Aeryn lightly, her gaze fixated on his firm lips. "It's, uh, our turn to cook tonight."

"Okay..." John said slowly. Was she staring at his mouth? "You hungry?"

"Starving," Aeryn breathed, looking at him in the same way a woman on a perpetual diet looks at a rich, gooey piece of double chocolate fudge cake. Greed, hunger, fascination and a little bit of regret were written on the Peacekeeper's normally stern face.

"Me too," John agreed, stepping forward eagerly.

"Good," said Aeryn crisply and turned away from him. Walking towards the maintenance bay doors, she glanced over her shoulder, humour glinting in her pale blue eyes. "You coming?"

In more ways than one, thought John, falling into step beside her. The two walked in a companionable silence through Moya's hallways, towards the galley. More than once John caught her peeking sideways at him as he glanced at her and he smiled happily to himself. All was as right as it could be in his world. Aeryn was by his side; Moya wasn't under attack; they were on their way to rescue D'Argo's son; he wasn't the only human stuck on board a ship full of aliens any more...

A sudden thought struck him and he turned to Aeryn, "You know..." he said slowly. "This isn't gonna change anything between us."

"What?" Aeryn asked him, looking innocently confused. If John had been paying attention, he would have realised that she looked a little too innocent, but he was more concerned with reassuring her.

"Willow," John explained. "Just because she's from Earth, it doesn't mean that I'm gonna fall into bed with her."

"I should hope not," Aeryn said gravely, a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips. "Especially since she's a laze-be-am."

"I mean, she's cute and all but Aeryn, she couldn't hold a candle to... What?" John stumbled to a halt as her words finally penetrated.

"A laze-be-am," Aeryn repeated, stopping and turning to face him. "She likes girls," she elaborated for him as he stood there, looking confused and a little lost.

Willow was a lesbian? Wow. Willow was a lesbian! Crichton was helpless to stop the mental image of Aeryn and Willow, semi-naked and locked in a passionate embrace that flashed through his mind. He smiled happily.

"John?" said Aeryn, concerned.

"Sorry," Crichton apologised, snapping out of his fantasy. "Guy moment."

Aeryn frowned, looking at him in puzzlement as he started walking again. Just when she thought she understood him, he did or said something like that and she was no closer to understanding him than she had been the day that she met him. Perhaps it was a human trait? Willow was just as confusing to talk to, and it was even harder to understand what she meant by what she said. She had an entirely different manner of speech to Crichton, which only made things more difficult and was going to take a while to get used to. Did everyone on Earth speak differently? How did they all communicate with each other?

"What does like like mean?" she asked thoughtfully as they passed Command.

Like like? Willow. It sounded like something she would say. John smiled as he replied, "Well... I like Zhaan; I like D'Argo; I like Willow; I like Chiana; sometimes I even like Sparky..." he looked down at her, his smile widening intimately as his gaze caught her blue eyes, "I like _like_ you."

A warm tingling feeling spread throughout Aeryn's body at his words and she found herself ducking her head slightly in embarrassed confusion, breaking eye contact. Irritated by the involuntary reflex, she forced herself to look up again.

"I like like you," she informed him solemnly.

Crichton grinned, "Good," he said simply.

Moya's soft burbles and coos, once so strange, now so familiar, wrapped themselves around the couple as they stood staring into each other's eyes in the middle of Moya's hallway. When had they stopped moving, wondered Aeryn. Did it matter?

"So..." said Crichton, moving away from her. "Food?"

Food? Who cared about food, thought Aeryn, admiring the way his leather trousers cupped his buttocks as he walked away from her, up the passageway.

"Food," she sighed, following him.

**l**

After Aeryn left, Willow pottered around the room that John had given her for her own, inspecting anything strange that caught her eye and picking up her few possessions and finding new places for them to live. John's warning that Rygel liked to 'appropriate' things that weren't his and that she'd likely find herself a target of his hadn't exactly inspired confidence in the security of her new surroundings. It sounded like if she wanted to keep anything safe, she would to have to keep it hidden.

She had just moved the bag of powdered zirconium that Zhaan had returned to her when she gave her Marvin's tank for the fifth time when the rat's small squeaks became more urgent. Stuffing the small leather pouch of glittery dust in the pocket of her cardigan (this room was cooler than the one they'd locked her in) Willow hurried over to the table that held his large tank.

"What's wrong?" she asked softly as she bent over the tank. "Are you hungry? I bet you could do with some water too, huh?"

Marvin squeaked plaintively.

"Okay," Willow told him with a gentle smile. "I'll see what I can rustle up."

Hurrying from the room, Willow waved her hand over the door controls as John had shown her, and smiled happily as the doors lowered from the walls and closed. Hopefully that'd keep the Frog out! She thought about placing an anti-theft spell on the room but dismissed the idea almost immediately. She didn't want to hurt the ship. It was an actual living ship! How cool was that? Maybe she should introduce herself. But how...? Maybe John would know.

Marvin! Willow guiltily remembered her reason for leaving her room when the rat squealed loudly. But which way should she go, she wondered, looking up the passageway. That way? Or...?

Turning to look down the hallway, Willow jumped as she caught sight of the person standing in the doorway of another room further down the hall, staring at her.

"Hey," the red-haired witch said with a friendly smile. "Chiana, right?"

"That's right," Chiana breathed with a smile, pleased that she remembered her name even though they hadn't been introduced.

"Do you know where I can get some food for Marvin? My rat," Willow explained when the grey girl looked confused. Her stomach gurgled loudly, reminding her of her own needs and Willow grimaced, "And me too, I guess."

Chiana grinned, "That way," she said, gesturing behind Willow. "First left, follow the passageway up five tiers, take a right and listen for Aeryn and Crichton bickering. It's their turn to cook tonight."

"Cool," said Willow, nodding her head as she committed the directions to memory. "Thanks."

"No problem," breathed Chiana, cocking her head to one side as the human woman turned and walked away.

She had just disappeared from sight when the sound of a small explosion reached Chiana's ears and Moya lurched violently to the right. Flung off her feet, Chiana didn't even have time to recover from her fall when she felt herself start to slip along the floor in the direction that she had sent Willow in. Small objects flew through the air and she could hear a roaring, sucking sound that grew louder as she tumbled headlong towards it.

"_Pilot_!" she screamed, somehow managing to flip onto her back and use her arms to stabilise herself as she rushed along.

Lifting her head, she could see one of Moya's internal doors cycling shut and she screamed as she felt herself being pulled towards the diminishing gap. Her arms flailed wildly as she tried to grab onto anything to stop herself. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, rather than see the door pass her by, cringing at the thought of what lay beyond.

Her feet landed on the door's surface with a thump and her eyes snapped open. What the frell? Relief coursed through her and she gasped air that was no longer thin into her lungs.

The lights went out.

"Pilot!"


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Note**

I am an evil, evil person who is going to hell for the cliff-hanger at the end of the last chapter. The muse would like to apologise by proffering this quick (albeit short) update.

Huge thanks to Cyclon One for performing unofficial Beta duty. I don't give him enough credit.

Anyway, enough from me. On with... The Uncharted Adventures of Willow Rosenburg!

**Chapter 10**

Barely able to breathe, Willow clung on to the small outcropping of metal for grim life. The rushing wind was starting to die down, which probably wasn't a good sign. Although it still tore at her body, making her arms feel as though they were being ripped out of their sockets, she felt lighter and more buoyant as she rode its current. The metal she held onto groaned and bent further back. Desperately, she reached for her magic as the pouch of powdered zirconium she had tried to use to teleport Glory was tugged from her pocket.

Instead of being sucked out of the ship, the glittery dust defied the laws of physics and hung in midair for a moment before reversing against the tumultuous force of the wind and surrounding Willow. Swirling in abstract patterns around her the dust grew brighter and brighter until with one final burst of brilliant light it, and the red-haired witch it enveloped, disappeared from sight.

**l**

A very confused rat was sniffing disconsolately at the fibrous flooring of his prison when the human female, designate: Willow Rosenberg, suddenly appeared in a flash of bright light. Her eyes crossed, and then rolled backwards in her head as she toppled forward, falling onto the table that held the tank.

As the table fell, the rat leapt; landing a safe distance away as the transparent tank it had been imprisoned in bounced off the floor; uncontrollably skidding further away as the tank bounced again; finally sliding to a halt as the tank landed on the floor with a clatter.

Freedom!

The rat dashed towards the door, passing the motionless human female, designate: Willow Rosenberg. Slowly, it halted before it had reached its target destination. Twisting around, the rat squeaked once, its pointed nose twitching rapidly as it stared at the human female, designate: Willow Rosenberg, lying sprawled on the floor. Her eyes were closed. Scampering up to her, the rat planted its two front paws on her face and squeaked shrilly. She didn't respond.

**l**

"What the hell?" Crichton said, shaking ila strands out of his hair as he reached for his comm badge.

"Pilot, what happened?" Aeryn was quicker and he shot her a rueful glance as he picked himself up off the floor, dusting the seat of his pants off and offering her a hand up.

"_Pilot_!" Chiana's panicked scream echoed around the galley as Aeryn accepted his hand and he pulled her up quickly as they exchanged significant looks.

"An explosion!" Pilot's image appeared in the clamshell. He looked extremely agitated as he elaborated, "Moya's venting atmosphere! I've isolated the affected area."

"Evasive manoeuvres," Aeryn told him, pulling her pulse pistol free of its holster.

"We weren't hit, Officer Sun," said Pilot.

"Pilot!" Chiana yelled again.

"The explosion was internal," Pilot explained urgently.

"Pip! You okay?" asked Crichton.

"What?" Zhaan joined the conversation. "Where?"

"Yeah," Chiana told Crichton, sounding more breathless than usual.

"Tier eight, treblin side," Pilot told Zhaan. "I'm sending DRD's to investigate."

"I'm fine," Chiana continued breathily. "But Willow's not."

"What?" demanded John, dread pooling in the pit of his stomach.

"Chiana!" D'Argo's panicked voice was distant and faint.

"I just sent her that way," Chiana said to Crichton. "Hey, D'Argo. I'm fine. See!"

Catching sight of Crichton's face, Aeryn hit her comms again, "Willow, respond. Willow!"

"She doesn't have any comms," John said faintly. He felt sick.

"Zhaan, I'm bringing Chiana to your lab," said D'Argo.

"Very well," Zhaan agreed as Chiana protested that she was fine. "What caused the explosion, Pilot?"

"I'm not sure," Pilot told them. "But..."

"What?" Aeryn asked as he hesitated.

"The DRD's are picking up traces of chakan oil inside the airlock," Pilot informed them.

"Chakan oil?" said Aeryn, looking at Crichton with a frown.

"Someone did this deliberately?" Zhaan asked.

"Rygel!" John yelled.

**l**

"Zhaan!"

Turning around at the sound of D'Argo's voice, Zhaan stifled a smile at the sight of the large Luxan carrying an indignant Chiana in his arms as he rushed into the room. Moving calmly forward, Zhaan met them halfway at the bed as D'Argo gently lowered Chiana onto it.

"I feel fine," Chiana told her stubbornly. "Will you tell him?"

"I'm sure you do," Zhaan said soothingly.

"See!" Chiana said to D'Argo. "Can I go now?"

"Sniff this," Zhaan told her, holding a small vial beneath her nose. "It will restore your respiratory system."

Chiana quickly sniffed, "Now can I go?"

"Lie back for a moment," said Zhaan, gently pushing her back into a more relaxed position. "You may feel a bit light-headed and dizzy."

"I feel f... oh!" Chiana's eyes widened and she grinned.

"Will she be alright?" D'Argo asked anxiously.

Zhaan smiled warmly at him, "Oh yes," she reassured him, replacing the cap on the vial. "She'll be fine."

Moving away to put the vial away in its correct place, Zhaan was surprised when, rather than stay by Chiana's side, D'Argo followed her across the room. Placing the vial on a shelf, she turned to him with an enquiring look and waited.

"Chiana," he said quietly. "She, uh, she says that the lights went out after Pilot shut the access points."

"You did not experience this?" Zhaan enquired, frowning.

"No. Uh..." D'Argo glanced over his shoulder at the Nebari girl as she lay giggling on the bed. "She thinks that Willow might still be alive."

"It is possible," Zhaan told him. "I know next to nothing of how she does her... magic. But it would probably require a great deal of power. More than a localised power cut."

"But there is a chance that she is alive?" asked D'Argo.

Zhaan nodded, looking concerned, "Perhaps someone should tell Crichton before he finds Rygel."

D'Argo snorted derisively, "Personally I'm more inclined to help him tear the little frellnik limb from limb when he _does_ find him," he growled, moving away from her, back towards Chiana. Taking her small grey hand in his own large one, he smiled down at her, "Hey," he said gently.

Chiana giggled.

**l**

Ducking under the nose of her prowler, Aeryn touched her comm button, "Crichton?"

"You found him?" Crichton's reply was almost instantaneous.

"No," Aeryn told him, climbing up into the cockpit of her prowler, "Pilot's asked me to survey the damage to Moya from the outside. I'm prepping my prowler now."

"Okay," said Crichton, sounding disappointed and distracted.

"I did stop by my quarters," Aeryn said to him, easing herself into the pilot's chair and strapping herself in. "Four cartridges of chakan oil are missing."

"_Four_?" John asked incredulously. Just one would have been enough to destroy the airlock. If Rygel had used all four, he would have crippled Moya.

"Yep," Aeryn sounded pissed off and he could hear the roar of the prowler's engine starting over his comms. "I suggest you find the little dren as quickly as possible. I'll be back to help you look as soon as I can."

"Hopefully I'll have found the toad by then," Crichton told her, turning around for a three-sixty look at the passageway he was in.

Aeryn didn't reply. Easing the 'hockey' stick he had found and kept in his quarters across his shoulders, Crichton picked a direction.

"Oh, Rygel!" he called. "Come out, come out, wherever you are...! I'm not gonna hurt you," he promised. "I'm gonna kill you," he added in a vicious undertone, swinging his stick. "Sparky! Spar_ky_! _Sp_...

"Huh?" John stared at the large red rat sitting on its hind legs in the middle of the hallway. "Marvin?" What was the rat doing out of its tank?

Marvin squeaked rapidly.

"What's that, Lassie?" John asked.

Marvin ran a short way down the passageway. Stopping to look back over his shoulder, he squeaked again.

"Timmy's stuck down the well?" said John, the stick hanging loose and forgotten by his side as he followed the rat.

**l**

Marvin led him to the main quarters. Most of them lived on this side of tier eight and he'd given Willow an empty room a couple of doors down from him. Jogging behind the scurrying rat, John found his heart racing at a speed that couldn't entirely be accounted for by his rapid pace. Was Willow alive? Marvin dodged into her room.

Following the rat into the room, John's heart seemed to stop entirely for a second when he saw Willow lying next to the overturned table. Kneeling beside her, he felt her throat for a pulse. Sighing in relief as he found one, he peeled back one of her eyelids.

"Willow?" she stirred slightly and he let her eyelid go. "Willow?"

"Xander?" she mumbled.

John chuckled slightly in relief, grinning at her even though she hadn't opened her eyes, "No."

"John," Willow pouted as he scooped her into his arms, her eyes opening a tiny crack. "I wanna go home."

"Me too," said John, carrying her out of her room.

"My head hurts."

**l**

**'Scape-ism's**

**Frellnik**: Expletive, roughly equivalent to 'fucker'.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note:**

I'd like to apologise. The muse works quicker when she has a cliffhanger to resolve.

Enjoy!

**Chapter 11**

"Zhaan!"

Once again, Zhaan turned around at the panicked shout. This time, however, she dropped the glass beaker she was holding. It shattered on the floor as Crichton ran into the room, holding an unconscious Willow in his arms.

"By the Goddess!" Zhaan breathed, hurrying towards them. "Quickly, put her over there," she indicated to the other bed. "D'Argo, help me move the scanner."

D'Argo had risen to his feet when he had heard John's shout and now stood staring at the two humans with an open mouth and an expression of shocked disbelief.

"D'Argo!" Zhaan called impatiently, wrestling with the scanner on her own. D'Argo sprang to help her.

John stepped back from the bed as they moved the scanner into position, unable to tear his eyes from Willow's face. Wake up Willow, he thought, almost willing her to live. She was his only link to a world he could feel himself slipping away from. She had to wake up. It took him a moment to realise that Zhaan was speaking to him.

"What?" he asked her in a raspy voice, blinking as he looked up from Willow's face.

"Was she unconscious when you found her?" Zhaan repeated, picking up the scanner remote and switching it on.

"Yeah, but she woke up just after," John told her. "She said her head hurt, then passed out again."

"How did you find her?" D'Argo asked.

"Marvin," explained John.

"Marvin?" asked D'Argo, confused.

"The raht?" said Zhaan, straightening slightly as she looked at Crichton with a slight frown. How was that possible?

"Who decided to call it _that_?" D'Argo grimaced in distaste.

"Willow," John informed him flatly.

D'Argo shut up.

"She is going to be alright?" John asked Zhaan. "Right?"

"She's exhausted, her heart rate is sluggish, her immune system is low and she's recovering from near-fatal asphyxiation," Zhaan told him, staring up at the scanner display. "But she'll recover," she smiled at Crichton, turning off the display. "She's asleep, which is the best thing for her right now."

"Good," said John, relieved. He began to back towards the door, "Listen, Rygel's still got chakan oil; I want the fact that Willow's still alive kept strictly on the off air until he's found."

"Off air?" Zhaan asked, puzzled by the expression.

"Don't talk about it over the comms," John told her, standing in the doorway.

D'Argo strode forward, drawing his Qualta blade, "I will help you look for him."

"Thanks, big guy," John said.

"Crichton!" Zhaan called out as they left the room together. They stopped, turning around. "How do I tell you when she awakes?" she asked.

"Say that Chiana's awake!" John suggested, gesturing to the Nebari girl as she lay quietly giggling to herself. He frowned, tipping his head slightly to one side as he spoke, "Is she...?"

"She'll be fine," D'Argo and Zhaan interrupted him at the same time.

"Can we go now?" D'Argo asked.

Turning back to Willow as they left, Zhaan drew the covers from the bottom of the bed up over the sleeping girl. Looking down at the seemingly frail human, she sighed, her face worried and her eyes concerned. The fact that she had managed to successfully teleport herself, under those circumstances, only draining a minimal amount of power from Moya... The fact that she had teleported at all! She would have to reassess her assessment of Willow's strength.

It wasn't that she wasn't pleased that the girl had survived, Zhaan thought, more that she was concerned about the power she wielded. The P'au offered up a fervent prayer to her Goddess that Willow only used her powers for good. That she never went down the dark path that Zhaan herself had travelled after her assassination of Bitaal. Teleportation... Transmutation... What else could this slight human girl do? A disappointed voice came from behind the Delvian Priestess as she stood beside Willow's bed, lost in thought.

"Heeeey... when did the room stop spinning?"

**l**

Outside Moya, Aeryn's prowler seemed to hang effortlessly in space as she surveyed Moya's hull, her face grim. Carefully, she eased the prowler even closer in for a better look at the damage caused by the explosion. She frowned as she noticed the stress fractures on Moya's outer hull.

"Pilot," she said, switching on external comms.

"Yes, Officer Sun?" Pilot responded immediately.

"I'm outside the airlock now," she told him. "There're several small stress fractures around the damage caused by the explosion. It looks like Rygel probably used two of the cartridges inside the actual airlock. Transmitting sensor readings now."

"DRD reports confirm that the explosion came from within the airlock," said Pilot.

"There's not much more I can do here," Aeryn said, manoeuvring her prowler away from Moya. "I'm returning to Moya."

"Thank you, Officer Sun," Pilot said as her prowler headed towards Moya's bay doors.

**l**

Prowling down one of Moya's passageways, D'Argo trod lightly, almost noiselessly, as he sniffed the air; his senses on full alert. Where the hezmana was Rygel hiding this time? Growling slightly under his breath, he continued onwards, touching his comm button.

"Crichton, any sign of him?" he asked.

"Nada," came Crichton's reply. "You?"

"Nothing."

Crichton sighed loudly enough for D'Argo to hear it over the comms, "Aeryn's heading back to help look. She and Pilot think that Rygel used two of her pulse rifle cartridges to blow the airlock."

"_Two_?" D'Argo double-checked that he had heard correctly, pausing slightly.

"Yeah," John confirmed. "He took four from her quarters."

"What did he need four for?" D'Argo wondered, frowning.

"Maybe he wanted to be sure he got her, whichever way she went?" Crichton suggested. There was a pause where D'Argo could almost _hear_ him thinking. "I'll check the other airlock!"

"I'll keep looking for Rygel," D'Argo told him, spying several DRD's that were performing the same function.

"D'Argo?" Zhaan's voice came before he had taken more than two steps.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"I need some things from my quarters. Could you come," she hesitated fractionally. "Keep an eye on Chiana for me, please?"

"I'm on my way," D'Argo told her, turning down the hallway that would lead him to her lab.

"Thank you, D'Argo," said Zhaan, smiling gratefully.

Sighing slightly, Zhaan turned around to face Chiana. The graceful Delvian stood in the middle of her lab, halfway between the closed door and the fidgeting Nebari hovering at the back of her lab.

"I still don't see why I can't go," Chiana grumbled. "You-you said it yourself. Rygel's gonna be gunning for her when he finds out she's still alive."

"Which is precisely why you cannot go," Zhaan reminded her wearily. "If you leave then I have no plausible reason to be here and no way to tell Crichton when Willow wakes."

"Yeah, well I'd rather not get caught between them when she does wake up!" Chiana said, glancing over at the red-haired girl as she lay peacefully sleeping. "Once was enough..."

"I'm sure Willow will be gratified by your concern for her wellbeing," Zhaan mentioned pointedly, folding her hands over her stomach.

Well, when she put it like that...

**l**

"There you are!" Aeryn greeted as she turned a corner on tier eight and met up with Crichton at the junction that led off to the main quarters. "What's so important that you have to tell me in person?"

Crichton stood there grinning at her as she looked at him in exasperation. They were wasting time that they could be spending looking for Rygel. The runt still had at least two cartridges of chakan oil and Crichton was grinning like a lunatic as he glanced around the deserted hallways, stepping closer to her. Why was he so happy, Aeryn suddenly wondered. Willow was-

"Willow's alive," Crichton told her quietly.

"What?" Aeryn asked, shocked. How was that possible? The airlock was still sealed off and that section of Moya exposed to space.

"She managed to teleport herself back to her room," Crichton told her, still speaking quietly as he began to move towards the main quarters. Aeryn walked close beside him, listening intently. "Zhaan's looking after her now."

"Is she alright?" asked Aeryn, already beginning to accept that the impossible was possible where the small red-head was concerned. Willow had managed to teleport herself from her home planet to Moya; that she could teleport from one section of the ship to another wasn't such a huge stretch to believe.

"She's asleep. Zhaan says she's exhausted," said Crichton as they approached the main quarters.

"So why aren't we looking for Rygel?" Aeryn wanted to know. The little slug still had chakan oil and as soon as he found out that Willow was still alive, he was bound to try and kill her again.

"D'Argo and I think he might have rigged the other airlock in this section to blow," Crichton said, heading towards it.

Aeryn grabbed his arm, stopping him from going any further, "You're just going to walk in there and check?"

"Yeah."

"And what if Rygel rigged the cartridges to a motion sensor?" asked Aeryn.

Crichton hesitated, his blue eyes blank, "Uhhh..." Okay, he hadn't thought of that.

Distracted by a skittering noise, they both looked down as Marvin ambled out of the airlock. The large red rat squeaked in alarm when he spotted them; quickly dashing through a DRD hole in the opposite wall and out of sight before either could so much as blink at the bizarre sight, leaving them staring at the arched hole in the wall.

"You forgot to mention that the ra't was loose again," Aeryn was the first to recover.

"R-" John went to correct her and then thought better of it as she glared at him. Quick, he thought desperately, change the subject! "I'm guessing there's no motion sensor."

There were no cartridges either.

**l**

Even his current cramped surroundings and extreme hunger could not abate Dominar Rygel the Sixteenth's glee. He had successfully dispatched the red-haired human who had attempted to turn him, Dominar to over six billion subjects, into a rodent. He was confident that he could remain hidden until his shipmates' anger had cooled. Pilot had already considered the bitch to be a danger to his beloved Moya and would only be relieved that she was gone. The others would likely take a few solar days to calm down, although he was expecting Crichton to react even more irrationally than usual. His fifth stomach gurgled loudly, protesting its emptiness.

No matter. He only had to wait until everyone was fast asleep – His hiding place shifted dramatically. Light blinded him. He gasped.

"Hello Rygel."


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's Note:**

Sorry it's been a while. Both Murphy and Real Life conspired to make sure that it took me a while to write this, despite my promises last chapter. Various things went wrong or kept me too busy to write. And I've now passed my driving test which means no more time scribbling in notebooks on public transport and more time spent dashing about the city on errands.

I don't think anyone's noticed (yet) but scattered throughout the story, Willow has been saying the phrases in the opening 'voice-over' intro in a deliberate homage to Farscape's first intro which (I believe) was taken from things Crichton said in the first episode. Now, with this chapter, there's only one left to go!

**To SpinelessPunster:** Do I get the shiny Kudos points?

I hope you enjoy!

**Chapter 12**

Even his current cramped surroundings and extreme hunger could not abate Dominar Rygel the Sixteenth's glee. He had successfully dispatched the red-haired human who had attempted to turn him, Dominar to over six billion subjects, into a rodent. He was confident that he could remain hidden until his shipmates' anger had cooled. Pilot had already considered the bitch to be a danger to his beloved Moya and would only be relieved that she was gone. The others would likely take a few solar days to calm down, although he was expecting Crichton to react even more irrationally than usual. His fifth stomach gurgled loudly, protesting its emptiness.

No matter. He only had to wait until everyone was fast asleep – His hiding place shifted dramatically. Light blinded him. He gasped.

"Hello Rygel," Zhaan said icily, staring down at the small Hynerian crammed into a tiny container.

"Zhaan!" Rygel gasped in relief. "What happened? Were we boarded? I thought it best-"

"Where are the cartridges?" Zhaan interrupted him, her normally gentle face set in stern lines.

"Er..." stalled Rygel. "What cartridges?"

"The chakan oil cartridges you stole from Aeryn's quarters!" Zhaan reminded him, pulling him from the container, into the air and shaking him. "Where are they?" she demanded.

As she shook Rygel, he felt the two remaining cartridges slip from his robes, clattering to the floor. They both looked down.

"Oh," said Rygel. "_Those_ cartridges." He smiled innocently and the edges of Zhaan's irises turned red.

"You could have killed Moya!" she raged, swinging Rygel through the air and slamming him down on a nearby workbench.

"It was worth it!" Rygel gloated. "Just knowing that she's dead brings me joy!" he chuckled slightly, as if to prove his point.

"Then your despair at learning that she survived must be great," Zhaan said icily.

"She what?" Rygel's jaw dropped. "How?"

"Her resources run deep," Zhaan told him. Her glare sharpened as she added significantly, "Crichton's species may be far stronger than we previously thought. I suggest you start thinking of ways to make amends to Willow."

"I will not!" Rygel protested. "If anything, _she_ should make amends to _me_," he added pompously.

"That is as may be," Zhaan said implacably. "But know this, _dear_ Rygel," she emphasised the endearment sarcastically, "By attacking Moya you have forfeited any right to my protection. Should Willow feel so inclined to turn you into a rodent for your actions, I will not stop her."

Rygel gasped, his jaw hanging open as he stared up at Zhaan. "But... but," he said.

"Crichton, Aeryn," Zhaan called, touching her comm unit. "I've found Rygel."

"But..." Rygel said again. It wasn't fair! He hadn't attacked Moya, just the human tralk who'd insulted his Royal person by trying to turn him into a rodent.

"Where are you?" asked Aeryn over the comms.

"In the maintenance bay next door to my lab," Zhaan told her.

"Be careful," Crichton warned her. "He's still got two cartridges of chakan oil."

"Not anymore," Zhaan said to him with a grim smile. Rygel flinched under her implacable glare.

"We're on our way," said Aeryn.

**l**

Floating peacefully in slumber, Willow frowned slightly as quarrelling voices began to draw her back to herself. Who was fighting? It didn't sound like any of her friends. And why did her head hurt? Had she been captured by demons? Wide awake now, despite the exhaustion that dragged at her, Willow kept her eyes shut, feigning sleep as she listened intently.

"But I wanna help!" a vaguely familiar breathy voice shouted. Where had she heard her before?

"Then do so by staying _here_!" roared a male voice.

Memory came flooding back to her. Trying to teleport Glory; finding herself on a biomechanoid ship with John Crichton and actual aliens _in space_; the explosion. One small tear escaped, squeezing under an eyelid and falling across her face. Lost in a tumult of emotions, Willow missed Chiana's reply and only came back to full attentiveness when D'Argo shouted.

"Chiana, no!" he sounded really angry. "I forbid it."

"Ohhh," Chiana breathed coldly. "You forbid it. Frell you!"

"Chiana!" D'Argo roared in a forbidding tone. His heavy footsteps echoed around the room as he strode closer to Willow's bed. "Chiana," he repeated in a much softer voice. "I almost lost you. It made me realise... I don't ever want to lose you. Which is why you will marry me."

Clearly not a good time to wake up, Willow mused, giving in to the beckoning fatigue. As her awareness receded back into blessed unconsciousness, she distantly heard Chiana's reply.

"What?" Chiana stared at D'Argo as if he had just grown an extra head. Which would have been slightly less shocking than his abrupt proposal. Where the frell had that come from?

At least he looked as stunned as she felt. "Uh..." he said.

"I... I'm gonna go help look for Rygel," Chiana said, slipping out of the room before he could object.

She heard D'Argo call after her but she paid no attention to him, desperate to be alone so she could sort out her jumbled thoughts. Marriage? No frelling way! Even as a child, the thought had held no attraction for Chiana.

It wasn't that she didn't like D'Argo... Or that he wasn't great in bed. They were good together. They fit. So why did he have to go and spoil things by wanting to get married? Commitment wasn't exactly her style. If she'd known that he was gonna get all serious on her... She'd probably still have jumped him after they all got swopped around each other's bodies, she conceded.

Her time on Moya was the longest she'd spent in one place since she and Neri had escaped Sanctuary all those cycles ago. And she'd never once felt that nagging itch between her shoulder-blades that told her it was time to get gone. She didn't want to leave but she didn't want to marry D'Argo either. So what was she going to do?

Glancing automatically through the open door of the maintenance bay next door to Zhaan's lab, Chiana was already several steps beyond the entrance when the scene inside registered. Frowning, she stopped and backed up to check that she wasn't hallucinating. She wasn't.

"What the frell?" she said and both Rygel and Zhaan turned to face her. Chiana's frustration found an outlet and she strode angrily into the room. "You're working with him?" she accused Zhaan.

Zhaan's mouth dropped and she started to protest her innocence but was interrupted by an acerbic snort from Rygel.

"You're even more fahrbot than I thought if you think that she could have had anything to do with such a cunning and artistic plan," Rygel said to Chiana.

With one bound, the grey Nebari was by his side. "Shut it slug," she told him, twisting his ear and making him cry out in pain. "Your cunning plan almost got me sucked into space!"

This was the scene that greeted John as he jogged into the room, Aeryn just behind him; Chiana crouching next to Rygel, pulling on his ear while Zhaan stood to one side, watching impassively. It didn't faze him in the slightest.

"Rygel, you son of a bitch!" he roared, grabbing hold of the Dominar. Rygel howled as Crichton picked him up and his sensitive ear was ripped free of Chiana's grasp. "You could have killed her!" John yelled as he slammed Rygel into one of Moya's walls.

"Pity I didn't," Rygel said snidely.

"Where are the cartridges?" Aeryn asked Zhaan anxiously as they watched Crichton snarl and slam Rygel flat on his back, down on a workbench.

Wordlessly, Zhaan handed them over as Rygel squirmed, trying to get free. Alarmed by the noise, D'Argo ran into the room, his Qualta blade drawn. He skidded to a halt when he saw that Crichton had Rygel in a headlock. Glancing quickly at Chiana, he turned his attention back to Crichton when she looked away from him.

"No more, Sparky!" John told him. "Attack Willow again and I'll flush _you_ out an airlock, capiche?"

"You wouldn't dare!" Rygel gasped for air.

"Try me," John said menacingly. "You're grounded, Buckwheat."

"And on rations," Aeryn added as Crichton let Rygel sit up.

"But we're decently stocked!" a horrified Rygel protested.

"Think yourself lucky," D'Argo told him. "If it was up to me, we'd leave you on the next planet."

"But... the next planet's a mining one," Chiana said.

"So much the better," said D'Argo, folding his arms.

Rygel gulped. Had they all run mad? All he'd done was try to remove a potential threat to Moya and himself.

"Hey, guys?" a sleepy voice came from the doorway and they all turned to look at the frail redhead standing in the doorway rubbing her eyes with one fisted hand. "Could you keep it down? I'm trying to sleep."

Finally managing to knuckle the last sleepy out of the corner of her eye, Willow peered at the group of assorted creatures staring at her. Their expressions ranged from concerned to murderous.

"Okay..." Willow said, trying not to quail under the froggy one's glare. "I'm gonna go back to bed."

She turned to go and then swung back round, frowning as she wondered, "Hey, why did the side of the ship go all ka-blooey?"

"Rygel-Rygel tried to space you," Chiana told her while the others were still wondering what to say.

"Tralk!" Rygel snarled at her.

"Frellnik!" retorted Chiana.

"What?" Willow asked, her eyes wide as she stumbled into the room, looking at John.

"Don't worry," John said to her. "We're gonna lock him in his room under restraint."

"What?" Rygel gasped.

"That's what being grounded means, Guido," John explained in a harsh tone.

"No it's not," Willow contradicted before she could stop herself. She flushed slightly as they all looked at her. "And you can't keep him locked up until I find a way home. It's cruel. I mean, I know we made Spike live in Giles' bath, but that was really more cruelty to Gileses. What if he escapes?"

"He won't," D'Argo told her, glaring at Rygel.

"Bank on it," Rygel said to him rudely. "And when I do," he said darkly to Willow. "I'm going to finish what I started."

Willow gulped at the sheer malevolence in his voice, "What did I do to you?" she wondered.

"You tried to turn me into a rodent!" Rygel bellowed at her at the top of his lungs.

"I didn't mean to!" Willow told him. "John said there was an evil alien coming and there you were and then Zhaan was there too and I don't really remember anything after that."

"So this is _your_ fault?" Rygel said venomously to Crichton. "I might have known."

"Hey Kermit, I wasn't done talking," said Willow before John could protest against the blame being heaped on his shoulders. She poked Rygel in the chest as she spoke and he gave a little 'ouff'. It was a toss up as to which one of them looked more surprised by her effrontery but Willow recovered first.

"You tried to blow me up!" she accused Rygel.

"You deserved it," he countered.

"No-one deserves to get blown up!" Willow protested.

"Which only goes to show how little you know," Rygel told her with an evil smirk.

"You are a very unpleasant person," Willow said to him.

Rygel chuckled happily. "I know," he sobered rapidly as he realised that they were dangerously close to getting along. "This doesn't mean I'm not going to kill you."

"Look, I'm sorry I almost turned you into a rat, but I didn't exactly ask to be transported to a ship full of fugitive aliens. I mean, sure, there's another human here but he's just an astronaut who got lost, like me," Willow's voice broke slightly on the last two words. "If I had gotten to pick someone to be lost in space with, it'd've been Tara. Or maybe Dawnie. Dawn would have been good. No offence," she quickly added to John.

"None taken," he assured her.

Turning back to Rygel, Willow's tenuous hold on her temper finally dissolved when she realised that the sentient frog was looking bored.

"Is any of this getting through to you?" she asked him sharply, her eyes darkening. "I don't like you and you don't like me but we're both here and somehow we're gonna hafta find a way to get along. At least until I get home."

"Please don't turn me into a rodent," Rygel cowered from her as the lights began to flicker.

Realising with a jolt that she was drawing energy from the ship again, Willow released the magic that she hadn't even been aware of gathering. The lights suddenly glowed with a painfully bright light. It faded as quickly, leaving Zhaan with a happy smile and everyone else blinking. Everyone apart from Willow, that is.

Almost nose to nose with Rygel, she buried her fear and revulsion at being so close such a loathsome creature and forced her resolve face to the fore. He looked afraid, which helped.

"You don't try to blow me up, and I won't turn you into a rat," Willow said to him. "Deal?"

"Deal," Rygel agreed gratefully.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," John said, holding up his hands. "You don't try to blow her up, stab her, maim her, torture her, blow her out an airlock, or in any way hurt her," he said to Rygel, not noticing the way that Willow turned paler with every term that he listed. "And she won't turn you into a rat. Deal?"

"Fine," Rygel grudgingly agreed, abandoning several plans he had been tentatively forming. "But I still say she's a menace we'd be better off without." He sniffed.

"I like her," Chiana offered unexpectedly. Willow beamed gratefully at her.

"I'm detecting some unusual energy readings," said Pilot as his image appeared on the clamshell.

Willow squeaked, stumbling backwards in surprise. Pilot briefly turned a baleful glare on her before giving his attention to Zhaan as she spoke.

"It's alright Pilot," the Delvian priestess reassured him calmly. "It won't happen again."

"Mmmm," Pilot grumbled, glancing at Willow as she stood sheepishly staring at the floor before he terminated his connection to the room and his image disappeared.

Had she really just seen a talking crab appear on TV? She had to be dreaming, Willow decided. That was it. She was having a really vivid, very realistic dream, complete with smell-o-vision. Any moment now, Tara would wake her up for class. She pinched herself.

"Ow," said Willow.

"What is it, my dear?" Zhaan asked her, concerned.

"I pinched myself," Willow told her, rubbing her arm where it still stung.

"Why?" Zhaan wanted to know.

John snorted, "You're not dreaming," he told Willow. "That was Pilot."

"Now that that's all settled, I'm gonna head to the galley," Chiana announced. "I'm starving."

"Me too," Rygel agreed, preparing to jump off the workbench.

"Oh, no you don't," John said, grabbing him.

"I will go with you," D'Argo said softly to Chiana.

"Why not?" Rygel protested.

"Because _you_ are going to bed without any supper," John told him, tucking him under his arm. "You've been a very naughty boy, Sparky, and that's what happens to naughty boys."

Rygel continued to protest as Crichton carried him out of the maintenance bay. Meanwhile, Chiana, not wanting to be alone with D'Argo in case he pressed her for an answer to his proposal, turned to Willow.

"You hungry?" she asked her. Willow's stomach chose that moment to grumble loudly and the red-haired witch smiled sheepishly. "Wanna come with?"

"Okay," Willow agreed despite D'Argo's scowl.

"Drad," said Chiana. "We've got fresh ila strands. Crichton-Crichton really likes those. He says they're like geeze strings if geeze strings were red and tasted like back-on."

"Actually we're out of ila," Aeryn told them bluntly.

**'Scape-ism's**

Sanctuary: A vast artificial ring encircling the frozen world of Nebari Prime. The majority of Nebari (around eight billion) live here. Unless someone knows better, it's where Chiana and her brother, Neri, grew up. Thanks to nebari (dot) net for their excellent resources.


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's Note:**

Here ends the first part of When Good Spells Go Bad.

Don't panic! It's not over yet. We've still got a long way to go.

But I need to return to the other story I've been writing, Slayers in Space. It's been horribly neglected while I wrote this story and the end of this chapter seems the perfect place to pause the story before I start writing the next part, A Clockwork Witch. Also, my coursework is starting to really pile up and I'm feeling pretty wiped out, creatively (who know that the drabble I initially sat down to write would grow to 20,000+ words?!) so I'm going to take a week off before I go back to Slayers in Space.

Don't worry, I won't forget When Good Spells Go Bad. I've had so much fun writing it, and got so many ideas from the wonderful reviewers that I've pledged to continue it. But it's going to be my fall-back fic. So expect the next installment when I get so blocked with Slayers in Space that I have to have a break.

Thank you to all the wonderful people who've reviewed so far. *hugs*

Enjoy!

**Chapter 13**

Tidying the remains of her strange meal away in the trash can that D'Argo had used to clear both his and Chiana's tray before he had followed the grey woman out of the room, Willow placed her metal tray on top of theirs and looked around. At least she didn't have to worry about making sure her meals were kosher, she mused absently as she looked in vain for something to clean up. Not that she ever really had. Her parents were very selective about their faith. For example, the prohibition on birth control. Desperate for a brother or sister, Willow had deliberately unpacked her mother's tablets from her suitcase at age six, only to be treated to a lecture on A Woman's Right To Choose from her father on her parents return.

Realising that she had been staring into space for several minutes, Willow blinked and turned to leave the room. Standing in the middle of the doorway, she thought for a moment. Chiana and D'Argo had both turned right when they left but she was pretty sure that they'd all entered from the left. Hadn't they? She was on a spaceship, it wasn't like she could get lost, Willow reasoned and turned left, not realising that she'd just jinxed herself.

**l**

"Crichton!" D'Argo exclaimed, catching sight of the human as he walked towards him. "Have you seen Chiana?"

"Nope," said John, stopping in front of him in the corridor. "You seen Willow?"

"I left her in the galley," D'Argo told him. "Why?"

"Got a comm for her," John showed him the small badge. "Why do you want Chiana?" he grimaced as he realised what he'd just asked, holding his hand up to prevent D'Argo from answering. "Scratch that, I don't want to know," John told him. He pointed down the hallway, behind D'Argo. "The galley?"

"That's where I left her," D'Argo confirmed as Crichton passed him.

"Good luck!" Crichton turned back to call out, briefly walking backwards.

D'Argo nodded glumly in reply and then sniffed deeply. Had Chiana even come this way? He sniffed again.

No.

**l**

"Where am I?" Willow sighed to herself, a frown crumpling her forehead as she stared up and down the wide curving passageway, her back to the only door it possessed.

She'd been walking for ages and she still hadn't seen anyone or anything she recognised. Right now even Rygel would be a welcome sight. It wasn't likely that she'd bump into him though, what with him being locked up for the night. Not for the first time, Willow wished she that she was back home on the familiar streets of Sunnydale. But not out loud. That would be bad. Or would it...?

Opening her mouth to give it a try – maybe there was a patron demon of lost witches or something – Willow was distracted by the sudden appearance of one of the yellow beetle robots that had surrounded her shortly after she had first woken up onboard Moya. Staring down at the small robot at her feet, Willow completely forgot what it was that she had been about to do.

Equally surprised to see her, the robot stopped dead in its tracks. Withdrawing a small gun from its body, it pointed it at her. Keeping its weapon trained on her, it backed back through the small opening in the door through which it had entered the hallway. The opening slid shut with a thud as soon as it had passed.

Left alone in the passageway, Willow stared at the smaller door within the door with her mouth open. Wondering why the small robot had behaved so weirdly (and what was behind the door), and feeling a bit like Alice in Wonderland, she pushed the door open.

It swung open freely and Willow almost stumbled into the large chamber beyond, immediately attracting the attention of several of the beetle robots and the large crab-creature she had only previously seen on the weird clamshell TV. The robots bristled and Willow found herself the target of several small guns.

"Um... hi," she said, raising her hands peaceably. "Um... I come in peace?" she offered hopefully.

The crab-guy glowered at her and the robots suddenly fled in all directions, quickly disappearing. Willow noticed that none of them came near her, although many kept their eyestalks and weapons trained on her until the last possible second before they vanished.

"You're Pilot, right?" Willow said to the crab-alien, who looked pretty immobile as his four arms moved over the console in front of him, his gaze never shifting from hers. "I'm Willow."

"I know who you are," he said dismissively, looking away. He looked back with a fierce glare. "You're the," he snarled some words that Willow couldn't understand. "That turned one of my DRD's into a rodent!"

"I'm sorry," Willow apologised, moving closer to him. "I didn't mean to. I was aiming for Rygel."

"A much more suitable target," Pilot said sarcastically.

"I thought he was evil!" Willow half explained, half protested.

"An easy mistake to make," Pilot remarked snidely.

"That's what I said!" Willow exclaimed, finally reaching the huge console that the alien sat behind. She peered over it. Pilot shifted back, further away from her. "Hey, how come you're all joined to the ship?"

"My species bonds with leviathans," Pilot told her stiffly. "I am Moya's companion and her liaison with her passengers."

"Cool!" said Willow. She bounced once as an idea hit her, "Ooh, does that mean you could pass on a message for me? Please?"

"You... wish to speak to Moya?" Pilot asked her, surprised by the unusual request.

"Yeah. Can you tell her..." Willow frowned as she thought about what she wanted to say to the sentient spaceship. "Tell her I'm really sorry about turning Marvin into a rat, and about taking energy from her, and that I'll try not to do it again, okay?"

Pilot's eyebrows had risen steadily throughout her speech but now they settled back down into their usual positions as he closed his eyes and concentrated. Willow fidgeted nervously as she waited.

"Moya..." Pilot said slowly, his eyes still closed. "Acknowledges your words." His eyes flew open and he gazed at Willow with surprise. "She... forgives you for your actions!" he finished the message quietly.

Willow grinned widely in relief, the load that had settled on her shoulders when she had learned that she was drawing energy from a living being lightening substantially.

"Why would she do that?" Pilot asked Willow. The loss of the DRD had pained Moya almost as much as the drain on her power levels, although in a different way.

"I don't know," Willow told him honestly. She leaned forward, her hands resting on the warm console. This time Pilot did not move away from her. "Could you thank her for me?"

"I will," Pilot agreed.

**l**

"Hey Zhaan, you seen Willow?" John asked as he walked into her lab.

Rummaging through the contents of one of her shelves, Zhaan stopped to look over her shoulder, "Not since she and Chiana and D'Argo all went to the galley," she told him.

"Damn," said John. He had been hoping that she had managed to retrace her steps.

"Crichton, wait!" Zhaan called as he turned to go.

"What's up?" John asked her as she turned to face him.

Resisting the urge to look up, long aware that he was not referring to the ceiling, Zhaan gestured to one of the chairs set around a small table.

"Okay..." said John, humouring her and sitting down. "What is it?" he asked as she sat next to him.

"It's Willow," Zhaan told him.

"What about her?" John asked warily.

"I have felt her _magic_," Zhaan pronounced the word carefully, "Twice now."

"And?"

"It tastes... inky," Zhaan said to him. "I believe that her use of it may not be entirely natural."

John snorted, "Tell me something I don't know!" he said. "She _is_ a witch, Zhaan."

"I don't understand," Zhaan frowned in confusion.

"An evil woman, in league with the devil," John explained the stereotype. He frowned and wondered, "Does that make Marvin her familiar?"

Familiar what? Never mind, Zhaan dismissed the thought. "The devil is a force of evil on your world?" she asked Crichton instead.

"Yeah," John said reluctantly, realising too late how bad his earlier words had sounded. "But he's not real."

He had said the same of witches not so long ago, reflected Zhaan. And it would explain much of Willow's abilities that she did not yet understand. Yet she was reluctant to categorise the young woman as an avatar of darkness such as Maldis. Willow had an unknowing innocence to her that did not sit well with such a role. Perhaps, if she could gain a better understanding of how Willow did what she did...?

"I would like to take Willow down to the mining planet when we reach it," Zhaan suggested. "It will give me a chance to test her abilities without danger to Moya."

"Test?" John asked suspiciously. "What kind of test? She hasn't even been here a day, maybe we should wait until she's found her feet before we take her to a different planet."

"You hadn't been here for half a solar day before you visited your first merchant planet," pointed out Zhaan.

"That was different," John reminded her.

"Perhaps," Zhaan conceded. "But I believe that the trip may do her some good." Seeing that she had his attention, Zhaan continued, "Her body's reserves were severely depleted by her teleportation. I believe that, given the chance, she will be able to replenish them by drawing upon the planet's natural energy."

"You're sure it'll work?" John asked doubtfully.

"As certain as I can be," Zhaan told him, dipping her head slightly. "I have given the matter a great deal of thought."

"Okay," John agreed to the plan. "First," he planted his hands on the table and pushed himself upright. "I gotta find her and give her her comms."

"John," Zhaan called after him. He turned around to look enquiringly at her. "Be careful," she told him. "The energy she channelled... She must be feeling some dark urges."

"Dark urges..." John repeated disbelievingly. Zhaan nodded. "Great."

**l**

Willow stood at the junction of three passageways, struggling to remember which way Pilot had told her to go. Unable to assign a robot to guide her, because apparently the little Diagnostic Repair Drones had issues about getting too close to her since she turned Marvin into a rat, he had given her a set of verbal instructions to follow instead. Unfortunately, either his directions were wrong or she was lost again.

Her terrible sense of direction wasn't such a problem on the familiar streets of Sunnydale where she knew every road and where it led. Here, though, it became a challenge. She would have to pick a direction eventually.

She carried straight on.

**l**

"Aeryn," standing in the doorway to one of the maintenance bays, D'Argo spoke to the dark-haired Peacekeeper hunched over a workbench. "Have you seen Chiana?"

"Not recently," Aeryn told him absently as she carried out some essential and delicate work on her pulse rifle.

D'Argo snorted. He doubted that she would notice if Crichton were to dance naked in front of her. With Willow. He was surprised that she wasn't reacting to the human girl's arrival with more... hitting. And anger. It _was_ the Peacekeeper way.

"Uh..." he said, unsure if he should broach the subject.

"What?" exasperated, Aeryn snapped the question at him.

"Crichton's looking for Willow," D'Argo told her, moving closer to her despite the little voice in his head that warned it might not be a good idea to get _too_ close.

"And?" Aeryn said distantly as she carefully replaced the trigger mechanism.

"It doesn't bother you?" D'Argo asked her with a frown.

"Does _what_ bother me?" Aeryn scowled briefly up at him before turning her attention back to her disassembled pulse rifle.

"Willow," D'Argo said awkwardly. "And Crichton."

"Please!" scoffed Aeryn, starting to reassemble her pulse rifle. "_Chiana_ has a better chance with Willow than Crichton. She likes girls."

The short time it took her to reassemble the weapon was punctuated only by the clicks as each piece slotted into place. Smiling with the satisfaction of a job well done, Aeryn stood up to sight down the pulse rifle's barrel. Turning to go, she frowned as she realised that D'Argo was still stood in the middle of the maintenance bay, one corner of his mouth turned up in a curious half smile and his eyes blank as he stared into, Aeryn followed his line of sight, the wall.

"D'Argo?" she called his name, hoping to snap him out of it.

Pulled out of his daydream of Chiana and Willow, D'Argo looked at Aeryn, "Huh?"

"Is that drool?" Aeryn asked suspiciously.

D'Argo blushed as he wiped his mouth.

**l**

The former DRD now known as Marvin finally tracked down the human female, designate: Willow Rosenberg, on the observation deck. Having worked out that his best chance for restoration to his previous state rested with the human female, Marvin had decided that the most logical course of action would be to stay close to her. If she had altered him once before, surely she could do so again. The difficulty had lain in finding her, not an easy task without access to Moya's databanks.

He scurried over to the human female, designate: Willow Rosenberg, as she slumped next to the plas-glass that protected the deck from space. Placing his two front appendages on her forearm as it lay loosely across her lap, Marvin squeaked insistently, demanding that she acknowledge him.

"Oh, Marvin," she sobbed, picking him up and cradling him to her soft chest. "I'm never gonna get home."

Marvin squeaked miserably as he felt the fur that covered his new body becoming unpleasantly damp.

That was how the human male, designate: Commander John Crichton, found them almost an arn later. Peering over the human female's shoulder, his nose twitching rapidly as he caught his scent, Marvin watched him hesitate in the doorway for a moment before he silently entered the room. Marvin squeaked once, a wordless plea for assistance, as the human male, designate: Commander John Crichton, approached.

"Hey," John said quietly as he settled himself down beside Willow.

"Hey," Willow replied thickly.

"You okay?"

"Yeah..." lied Willow.

"Good," John said, a little too heartily. Catching sight of Willow's red eyes as she glanced through her hair at him, he cleared his throat awkwardly. "Zhaan... uh... Zhaan thinks that you might be feeling some dark urges. Because of the mojo," he was quick to qualify.

"Me?" Willow squeaked, startled out of her blue funk. "Nuh-uh. I'm all dark urge free. Pinky swear," she proffered her pinkie.

Grinning, John accepted it, solemnly shaking their enjoined fingers up and down. Turning his gaze back to the stars before them, he asked, "Found Earth yet?"

"Nope," Willow said. "I've given up looking," her voice cracked tearfully as she spoke.

John reached out and enfolded her into his arms; Marvin managed to squirm free of Willow's grasp and descend to the floor. Rocking her back and forth as she wept, John stroked Willow's back comfortingly.

"We'll get home," he said when her sobs began to die down. "I promise."

Staring out into the vast expanse of space, Willow couldn't help the niggling doubts that lingered in spite of his words. A slight pressure on her leg caused her to look down from the awesome view into the sharp face of Marvin as he stared up at her, his two front paws on her denim-clad leg. His canary-yellow whiskers twitched ludicrously as his nose quivered and she couldn't stop the small chuckle that escaped her. Didn't want to, in fact.

Sat on the observation deck of a sentient spaceship, wrapped in a dead astronaut's arms as she softly stroked a damp red rat that had been a yellow robot until very recently, Willow finally began to think that maybe, just maybe, everything was going to be alright.


End file.
